The Shut Mouth Society (The Best Thrillers Book 1)

by Unknown

  Property crimes demanded most of his resources and catching the Rock Burglar presented his biggest challenge. The nickname was a misnomer because his department felt confident that a gang committed these crimes, not an individual. The criminals carefully cased a neighborhood, learned the routine of the residents, and then threw a rock through a window when the owners were away. In less than five minutes, the gang swooped up everything of value and disappeared before the police responded to the alarm. Worse, they would commit a couple of burglaries and then move to another prosperous city, only to return to Santa Barbara after the residents had again become complacent. This had been going on for nearly eight years, and despite cooperative investigations between various police forces, the gang had not only eluded capture, but had left no forensic evidence that pointed in a consistent direction.

  By the time Evarts got off the phone, he had approached the busy commercial district. Santa Barbara advertised Old Town as the most beautiful downtown in America, but Evarts thought Carmel and a few other cities might challenge that claim. Despite the exaggeration, Old Town, with its Spanish architecture, abundant sidewalk cafés, curio shops, fine restaurants, and countless coffeehouses, exuded the charm and relaxed atmosphere of a Mediterranean coastal village.

  Like all the truly wealthy in town, Douglass lived high up a secluded canyon in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Evarts drove the serpentine road carefully and then pulled onto a gravel path facing a wrought-iron gate. He pushed the call button on the security box, and the gate opened without an inquiring voice over the squawk box. Evarts had examined the Douglass security system and knew that a camera showed his face on a monitor inside the house. After passing through the gate, he drove along a private road that followed a ridgeline until he reached the house that had been built on the apex of an outcropping.

  Although the white stucco house had a red tile roof, it veered from the contemporary architecture that realtors called the Santa Barbara style. The flat facade, crushed rock driveway, and minimalist landscaping gave the impression of an ordinary house, but this unpretentious entrance disguised an exquisitely decorated, rambling single-story home of over eight thousand square feet. From the driveway, the house also blocked the panoramic view of the California coastline that could be seen from the patio on the far side of the traditional Spanish hacienda.

  Douglass’s manservant opened the door before Evarts rang the chimes. Evarts nodded to the familiar face. “Hi, Pete.”

  Without preamble, Peter said, “Mr. Douglass is on the back patio.”

  “Thank you.” Evarts walked about twenty feet through the antique furnished foyer and out a set of double doors. The hacienda was built in a square around a huge, tiled courtyard. Mexican-style furniture had been arranged into four sitting areas that surrounded a bubbling fountain in the center. He had attended charity functions where over a hundred people had comfortably sipped cocktails in this central square, but it wasn’t his destination today. He traversed the length of the courtyard and entered the house again through an identical set of double doors. They led to an enormous common room that could hold another hundred people for Douglass charity events. As he walked through the great hall, Evarts saw that all of the atrium doors lining the back of the house stood open, making the room feel more like an extension of the rear patio than part of the house.

  Evarts picked one of the twelve doors and stepped out onto the patio. For first-time visitors, the grandeur of the view came as a surprise and a treat. Douglass had had the patio designed so that the ground seemed to disappear at the edge of the tiled surface. A person walking through one of these doors had the impression of being cantilevered over some of the most beautiful coastline in California. This was Abraham Douglass’s favorite spot in the world, and the two of them often spent the evening sipping scotch whiskey and watching the sun slowly sink into the Pacific Ocean.

  “Good evening, Mr. Douglass,” Evarts said to the man’s back.

  Douglass turned with his evening scotch already in hand. “Mr. Douglass? What’s got your dander up?”

  “I think you know.” Evarts took his usual seat in the chair on the opposite side of a glass-top table. He noticed the backgammon game was nowhere in sight.

  “Peter, can you get Mr. Evarts the usual?”

  Douglass, of course, meant a glass of Macallan’s, neat. “No thank you, Pete. Not just yet. I have official business first.”

  Douglass turned toward the sunset and took a shallow sip of his scotch. Abraham Douglass kept his craggy face clean-shaven and his gray hair cropped so close that his black skull showed through. Evarts knew Douglass was seventy-three, because he attended his gala birthday parties each year. An exceptionally handsome man, Douglass wore Hollywood-style attire from the forties, which made him look like a gracefully aging movie star.

  In truth, he had made his fortune in Southern California’s other great industry. When John F. Kennedy set the country’s sights on the moon, the Los Angeles area had already become the aerospace center of the country. Northrop, North American, Douglas Aircraft, Lockheed, TRW, Hughes, and others had bustling factories that contributed far more to the local economy than the entertainment industry. Douglass had had the foresight to understand that these factories would need millions upon millions of fasteners certified to stringent government specifications. His Aerospace Supply Company provided all these companies with explosive bolts, rivets, screws, and esoteric single-use fasteners that cost more than the outrageously priced hammer of Apollo fame. Douglass built a highly profitable business, but his huge wealth came from selling his company at the height of the eighties acquisition and merger craze.

  “I presume you have questions,” Douglass said.

  “A few. Where did you get the Lincoln document? Who’d you buy it from, and how did they contact you? Why did you have Baldwin hide the copy from me? How can this document endanger her? Why did you include that page of code? And finally, has there actually been a crime committed, or are you using me to run errands?” Evarts paused. “You may answer in any sequence you choose.” He said this last with a bit of an edge.

  Douglass seemed amused. “Is this the way you normally grill suspects?”

  “Damn it. Is everyone going to answer my questions with questions today?” Evarts turned toward the rear door. “Pete, on second thought, I’ll take that scotch now.” Evarts’s irritation grew because Douglass wore an enigmatic smile that said he found his friend’s annoyance amusing.

  Douglass waited until Evarts had been served. “You called it the Lincoln document. I take it you believe it genuine.”

  “Abe, you’re too damn smart to get scammed, and fake documents don’t raise a warning to third parties. My bet is that Baldwin will prove this document real.”

  “Probably not, but she won’t prove it fake. Harder to prove the positive.”

  “Did you use me just to get her up here?”

  Douglass took a deep breath. “Yes. But it’s bigger than that. Much bigger. I’ll explain everything when she gets here.”

  “I can wait a few minutes but tell me now why you had her hide the document from me.”

  “Greg, I couldn’t trust your chivalrous nature. If someone threatened Professor Baldwin in your presence, you would disclose the location of the document in a heartbeat. Now the decision will be hers alone.”

  “What about the encrypted page? I’d like to take a crack at that code.”

  “Use your own copy.”

  Evarts stopped. “How do you know I have one?”

  “You might not care about the Cooper Union notes, but you could never resist that encryption.” Douglass chuckled. “I knew you’d make a copy for yourself before you drove down to UCLA.”

  “You used a priceless Lincoln document as bait? For what?” Evarts took a sip of his drink and set the heavy crystal glass down hard enough that the glass tabletop rattled. “Abe, why? You’ve never been devious with me before.”

  “Ah, but I wish that were tru
e.” Douglass held up the flat of his hand to signal that he wouldn’t explain. “Please be kind enough to wait until Professor Baldwin arrives.”

  Evarts took a deep breath and picked up his drink. “Are you getting me involved in something illegal?”

  “An outrage, yes, but illegal … no, I don’t think so.”

  “That doesn’t sound reassuring.” Evarts thought about leaving but decided against it. He knew and trusted Douglass, so he would wait to hear the explanation. “No backgammon this evening?”

  “I thought you’d be more interested in spending the evening with an attractive woman.”

  “Professor Baldwin doesn’t like me, and I think she hates you.”

  Douglass laughed. “That ought to make for an interesting evening.”

  Evarts remembered the notation he made during Baldwin’s lecture. “Abe, are you a descendant of Frederick Douglass?”

  “Yes, I’m a direct descendant. That’s why I donated some of his papers to UCSB.” Douglass took on that enigmatic smile again. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked that question before now.”

  “Never occurred to me. I don’t care about people’s ancestry.”

  “Ah, but you should. Family’s important. You ought to look into your own genealogy.”

  Evarts finished his drink. “What the hell for? I know my parents. They’re good people. Anything beyond that is useless trivia.”

  Chapter 5

  Professor Baldwin arrived in less than an hour. She had on the same casual slacks, but now she wore a green raw-silk blouse that accented her eyes. She also wore a frosty demeanor that made their little social gathering a bit scratchy.

  The first words out of her mouth set the tone. “Good evening, Abe. Can I look at the originals of that document?”

  “Patricia, my dear, relax a moment first. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering you a nice port.”

  “I didn’t come here to socialize.” She didn’t take a seat or acknowledge Evarts’s presence.

  “But it would be polite. Please, humor an old man. After all, you’re about to examine a singular piece of antebellum history. One worthy of a learned dissertation by a preeminent Lincoln scholar.”

  “Flattery? I thought that beneath you.”

  Douglass chortled, as if privy to an inside joke. “In truth, very little is beneath me.”

  “If you think I’m a preeminent Lincoln scholar, why did you ravage my last book?”

  “Because your premise was wrong, my dear,” Douglass said with a cheery lilt.

  Exasperated, Baldwin slipped into the open chair. She picked up the glass of port and sniffed without tasting. “My, you pulled out one of your best bottles.”

  “A celebration. It’s not every day that a new Lincoln document surfaces.”

  She turned to Evarts for the first time. “You told me Abe thought the document was a forgery.”

  “Evidently, our host is playing games. I suspect the document’s real and that Douglass knew it all along.”

  “Impossible.” She shifted her gaze to Douglass. “Where would you get a pre-inaugural address in Lincoln’s own hand?”

  “From the descendants of people entrusted with Lincoln’s early papers.”

  “What? Who?” Baldwin sat bolt upright, looking flabbergasted. “You mean to say there’s more? Do you have them?”

  “I’m only in possession of the Cooper Union manuscript. You may examine it momentarily, but first, enjoy your port and the sunset. They’re both spectacular.”

  “Spectacular, hell. The sun sets every night. A previously undiscovered Lincoln document comes along once in a lifetime. Abe, you’re enjoying this far too much.” She looked peeved but tasted the port and made an appreciative nod. After another sip, she asked, “Why me?”

  “Why us?” Evarts interjected.

  Douglass appeared to choose his words carefully. “Patricia, you’re one of the foremost Lincoln experts in the country, and our friend Evarts here has the right background for his piece of our little enterprise.”

  “You mean my intelligence experience, don’t you?” Evarts said. “You used the Cooper Union manuscript to get me intrigued about the encrypted code.”

  “You’re a fine detective, which you just demonstrated.” Douglass raised his glass in a salute. “Your deduction is correct.”

  “Who wrote it? The code doesn’t appear to be in Lincoln’s hand.” Baldwin went right to practical matters.

  “I don’t know. That message was sent to Lincoln prior to his departure for New York to deliver that address. The code has never been broken.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” Evarts felt growing annoyance at being used for nonpolice business.

  “But true, nonetheless. People have tried, but no one has found the key to unlocking the encryption. All we know is that Lincoln was in secret communication with someone, and that someone probably lived in New York.”

  “Because the two documents were kept together?” Evarts asked.

  “Another astute deduction.” Douglass smiled at Baldwin. “See, I’ve paired you up with someone useful to your research.”

  “Paired? What are you talking about? I thought you just used Detective Evarts to get me up here.”

  “The task ahead requires both of you.”

  Douglass spoke with such solemnity that Evarts began to question his competence. He leaned forward. “Abe, perhaps you should explain this mystery … from the beginning.”

  “An excellent suggestion.” Douglass sipped his scotch and gazed at the horizon a moment. “This mystery, if you will, goes back to the Civil War. Beyond, actually. It involves one of the most powerful political families in our nation’s history. A family that was instrumental in securing our independence, engineering our republican government, and moving us ever forward toward the vision espoused in our founding documents. A family that not only had a hand in fomenting the Civil War, but to a large extent prosecuted that conflict.”

  Douglass took another moment to enjoy the view. Evarts might have been concerned, but he had seen this behavior on numerous occasions. Right in the middle of a roll of the dice, Douglass would almost go into a trance. It had never bothered him before, but now he wondered if these periodic distractions were an indication of an unraveling mind.

  When Douglass spoke again, it was as if there had been no interruption. “I believe the encrypted page will unveil a good piece of the mystery. And I can’t think of two better minds to put on it. It’s why I brought the two of you together.”

  “Which family?” Evarts asked.

  “Later. You need to understand more first. But I can assure you this family makes the Adams, Kennedy, and Bush families look like featherweights.”

  Evarts watched Baldwin scoot her cushioned chair around so she had a better view of the coastline. The way she sipped from her glass and sighed contentedly said volumes. She had dismissed Douglass’s recital as the ranting of an old man who was starting to lose it. Her posture and lack of further questions indicated that she had decided to take her host’s initial advice and enjoy the glow of an ending day, savoring the outrageously expensive port.

  Evarts, however, hoped this cagey old man might still be in possession of his faculties. He tapped the glass tabletop and used his hard cop voice to get Douglass’s full attention. “Where did you get the Cooper Union manuscript?”

  “From the Shut Mouth Society,” Douglass said. “An organization founded by members of the family I told you about.”

  “And the encrypted document?”

  “Same source.” Douglass seemed pleased with the questions.

  Suddenly, Baldwin whirled around, now interested in the discussion. “The Shut Mouth Society? That’s how Lincoln’s law partner described him. He said he was the most shut mouth man he had ever encountered.”

  “Correct, my dear. The Society took its name from that description.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Lincoln’s family wasn’t powerful … politically or otherwise. His
ancestors were dirt poor. His son Robert was secretary of war, minister to Great Britain, and president of the Pullman Corporation, but there were no other prominent members of the Lincoln family.”

  “You misunderstood. The Shut Mouth Society idolized Lincoln, but neither he nor his family members belonged to it. A loose family cabal existed before Lincoln, but they became a secret society only after his death.”

  “A secret society? That sounds like the kind of hokum I’d expect to hear on a radio talk show in the wee hours of the morning,” Evarts said.

  “Have you ever heard of the Shut Mouth Society?” Douglass asked with a sly smile.

  “No,” they both said in unison.

  “That proves they’re a secret society, because I can assure you, it’s been in existence for nearly a hundred and fifty years.”

  “Doing what?” Baldwin asked.

  “Oh, you know secret societies. Much ado about nothing. The appeal is the secret association and some arcane little rituals. Once you get inside the Masons, Skull and Bones, or the Illuminati, the supposed secrets always disappoint.”

  “Are you a member of the Shut Mouth Society?” Evarts asked.

  “Me? A black man? Heavens, no. I told you the Society is comprised of descendants of a powerful political family that goes back to our founding. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Negro family that fits that description.”

  “Then how do you know it really exists?” Evarts asked.

  “Because my family has had dealings with the Society over the years. I knew about them from my father … and they provided the Cooper Union manuscript as their bona fides. A sample of their treasure trove, so to speak.”

  “Treasure trove?” Baldwin said incredulously. “Just before the Lincolns left for Washington, Mary burned stacks and stacks of papers in the alley behind their house. Historians always assumed that these weren’t just personal letters but all her husband’s political papers.”

  “Historians assumed wrong.” Douglass appeared to enjoy this exchange way too much.