The Shut Mouth Society (The Best Thrillers Book 1)

by Unknown

  “No.” Evarts shook his head to emphasize his denial. “Nor do I believe my parents are. They’re so nonpolitical I have to harangue them to vote.”

  “No one in my family has mentioned it either, but I’m not sure they don’t know about it. I always sensed there was something overly secretive about the way we handled our affairs.”

  “Can you talk to them?”

  “You’re kidding? I can’t wait to talk to them. I may even ask you to apply your police interrogation skills.” She laughed. “Nonviolent, of course.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “New York. Upper West Side.”

  “Can’t call them.” Evarts thought. “We’ll stop on the way to Boston. See them in person. By the way, did you have a chance to make a list of nineteenth-century law books?

  “Yes. I narrowed the list to about twenty prime candidates.”

  “Great. Now all we need is a library that has old law books. Maybe in New York.”

  “That’s not a problem. I’m a member of the Boston Athenaeum, the oldest private library in the country.”

  “Maybe that’s not a good idea. If you’re a member, they might watch it.”

  “The Athenaeum is private and elitist. They don’t give information to nonmembers. My father bought me a lifetime associate card in prep school, so I pay no dues.” She hesitated. “I bet it’s safe. I haven’t been back in nearly ten years.”

  “I’ll think about it. What else did you learn about this family?”

  “Lots. Listen to these names: Susan B. Anthony, William Jennings Bryan, Henry Stimson, Archibald Cox, and Sherman Adams.”

  “I’ve heard of them.”

  “The family helped found the American Bar Association, the ACLU, the Counsel of Foreign Relations, the Smithsonian, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Brookings Institute. Members were heavily involved in the Warren Commission, the Manhattan Project, and both Yale and Harvard. Do you remember Douglass said the family was instrumental in the Civil War?”

  “He actually said they had a hand in fomenting the Civil War and to a large extent prosecuted that conflict.”

  “You’ve got a good memory.”

  “Detectives are trained to listen.”

  “A man who listens. That may be unique.”

  Evarts smiled. “Perhaps, but remember, we’re always trying to trip people up, so be careful.”

  “I will. Anyway, you’ve probably already guessed General William Tecumseh Sherman, but did you know his brother held the Senate seat from Ohio and wrote the Sherman Antitrust Act?”

  “I hadn’t even thought as far as General Sherman.”

  She flipped back to her notebook. “General Thomas Ewing and General Charles Ewing both married into the family. Major Hoyt Sherman served as paymaster for the Union army. General Nelson Appleton Miles won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Roger Sherman Greene commanded the ‘colored regiment’ and Dorothea Lynde Dix served as superintendent of nurses for the Union army. She later became a social activist for women’s issues. Key generals, highly regarded politicians, head of nurses, control of the army payroll—this family covered all the bases.”

  “You’re saying all those people were related?”

  “Either a direct line from Roger Sherman, or they married one of the women. But there’s more. Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s first secretary of war, was also a family member, as well as William Maxwell Evarts.”

  “That’s the first Evarts.” He took his eyes off the road a second to look at her. “Who was he?”

  “Lincoln’s envoy to Great Britain during the war. A critical post because Lincoln’s top foreign policy imperative was to deny recognition of the South by world powers and to withhold European aid from the Confederate States. Actually, there were Evarts all over; William was just the most prominent. He even defended President Johnson during his impeachment hearings.”

  “Johnson? He wasn’t impeached.”

  “Wrong century. Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor. In fact, this family was involved in the most dramatic trials in our history. William Jennings Bryan prosecuted the Scopes Monkey Trial. Archibald Cox, the Nixon impeachment. Roger Sherman Baldwin defended the Amistad captives.”

  “I thought that was John Adams.”

  “Movies. Adams didn’t get involved until the case reached the Supreme Court. Actually, Matthew McConaughey played Roger Baldwin.”

  “Did you know he was a relative?”

  “Yeah, I knew that. Part of my family lore.”

  “We just left California,” Evarts said.

  She looked up from her notebook and said, “Are we safe then?”

  “I’ll feel better when we reach New Mexico. California and Arizona police cooperate a lot.”

  “How long?”

  “Five or six hours. I know a back way that avoids Interstate 10, so we should be okay.”

  “You want me to drive?”

  “You done with your notes?”

  “With the facts, yes, but not with my conjectures.”

  Evarts pulled into a rest stop. After they had relieved themselves and switched drivers, Evarts said, “Tell me your conjectures.”

  “Roger Sherman had fifteen children. It seems all the prominent family members came from the daughters, not the sons.”

  “What do you make of that?”

  “You said you never heard of Roger Sherman, but have you heard of the Great Compromise? Sometimes called the Connecticut Compromise.”

  “If I remember my high school civics, that was the compromise at the Constitutional Convention that gave equal representation to the states in the Senate.”

  “Correct, but it was actually far more complicated. The result enshrined slavery in the Constitution and gave the South the mechanism to protect their peculiar institution. That compromise led directly to the Civil War. The biggest prewar political battle involved the extension of slavery into the territories. During the eighteen-fifties, the slaveholding states had overturned the delicate compromises of the last seventy-some years and would at some point control the Senate if slavery were legal in states admitted in the future.”

  She gave him a look to see if she still held his interest. Evarts gave her a nod to go on. “Roger Sherman engineered that compromise. It violated his morals and ethics, but he knew that without accommodating slavery, a single nation wouldn’t emerge from that convention. It was a compromise he was forced to make. I think it bothered him, and he conveyed his misgivings to his daughters. Whether with him or without him, the women probably made a pact to erase this stain on the family. When you look at the abolitionist movement, the daughters’, their spouses’, and their children’s fingerprints are all over the place. I think the key to the Shut Mouth Society is through the women.”

  “Except … something doesn’t make sense. The Shut Mouth Society murdered my friend and probably your former fiancé. Everything you’ve relayed shows idealistic motivations. How do you account for that?”

  “I don’t. I told you I was confused and scared. But do you still think Douglass threw us together by accident?”

  “No way. Nor was it an accident that he sidled up to me at that benefit. He even gave me a clue the other night. He told me to investigate my family genealogy. Obviously, we have been watched and recruited. But for what? And why now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Shut Mouth Society kept their secrets for a hundred and fifty years. Possibly longer. Something has changed the landscape and pulled us into a maelstrom.”

  “But what? There’s nothing on the news.”

  “That’s what we’ve got to figure out. That’s the key to this mystery.”

  Chapter 15

  When they reached the outskirts of Denver, Evarts took the west exit onto Interstate 70.

  “Where are we going?” Baldwin asked.

  “To get a car.”

  “In the mountains?”

  “Copper Mountain to be exact.”

  “The ski re
sort? Why there?”

  “Out-of-state skiers store SUVs in the subterranean parking under their condos. A stolen car won’t be missed until next ski season.”

  “You’re going to steal a car? A cop?”

  “Borrow. I’ll return it when we finish this business … which better be before snow falls in the Rockies.” He turned from the road and smiled. “I’ll leave an envelope in the glove box with cash for the miles.”

  “How much?”

  “I think the IRS allows forty-eight-and-a-half cents a mile.”

  “Four thousand miles will cost you nearly two thousand dollars.” She smiled and her voice was teasing. “Pretty expensive for a civil servant.”

  He duplicated her tone. “I was hoping you’d pick up half.”

  “Deal. Let’s go a few more miles up the road to Vail and steal something fun to drive. Same rate.”

  Evarts laughed. “Do you ski?”

  “I go to Vail twice a season. Yourself?”

  “I’d rather ski than do anything except surf. I own a threadbare condo at Copper Mountain with three other cops in the department. I usually get up there three times a season. Sometimes more.”

  “Then we should make a ski date. I’ll race you down the hill.”

  “I’ll win, but not on style. Never had a lesson.”

  “When I was a child, my parents took me to Vail several times a year, but they always left me with an instructor.” She laughed. “I’ve probably had a year’s worth of lessons.”

  “Expensive at Vail. Copper Mountain’s down the hill and down the food chain. We’ll get our car there, and it will be a three- or four-year-old Ford or Chevy. Something common and nondescript.”

  “What other sports do you like?”

  “Tennis.”

  “Singles or doubles?”

  “Singles.”

  “So … surfing, skiing, and singles tennis. Not much into team sports, are you?”

  “I never thought of it that way, but I guess you’re right. I didn’t play sports in high school because they would’ve kept me away from the beach.” He considered what she had said. “As I think about it, I guess I do prefer individual sports.” Evarts threw her a smile to show he was kidding. “I go to the gym regularly. Does that count as a team sport? Lots of people.”

  “Hardly. What’s regularly?”

  “Two, three times a week.”

  “I go most every day. Even on days when I play tennis.”

  “Singles or doubles?”

  “Doubles. Faculty league. I like the social aspects.”

  Evarts drove a few minutes before asking, “Are we getting to know each other or just making idle conversation?”

  “Good question. I’ve been stuck in this car with you for two days. That’s more time than I’ve spent talking to a man in … well, maybe in my entire life.”

  “Not even with Greg Marston?”

  Evarts regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth. He glanced over and saw that she seemed disturbed by the reminder of her ex-boyfriend’s demise. But when she spoke, her voice sounded even. “We never talked. Probably the reason we broke up. After the first few dates, he even brought a book to restaurants.”

  “You didn’t complain?”

  “I needed to research my own book, so I fell into the habit with him, but after a while I realized I needed a companion, not a reading mate.”

  Evarts frequently took a newspaper to breakfast. He vowed to squelch that habit if this turned into anything serious. He liked women and seldom had trouble making conversation, but just as seldom enjoyed the dialogue. Probably why he seemed to end things after a couple months. But he had been cooped up in a rolling box with Baldwin for two days and enjoyed every waking moment. When they weren’t speculating about the Society and their predicament, she captivated him with her explanations of history. He loved her enthusiasm and the way she tied events together to expand their meaning and consequence. She also enlivened her little talks by revealing the odd or nasty peccadilloes of historic figures. She knew all the dirt about the forefathers and used it to turn history into stories about real people. She had begun to charm him, and he seldom let anyone tug on him emotionally.

  During the long hours of driving, they also shared their personal histories. She had evidently been a handful as a teenager and an outright rebel at Berkeley. She grew up in New York City, but insisted on going to college on the West Coast. This devastated her parents, who believed that all schools west of Trenton, New Jersey, were minor tributaries of mainstream education. Which, of course, was why she chose the school with the most radical image in the nation. Despite banging around the radical fringes her first two years, she grew up in her junior year and outgrew Berkeley by her senior year. In graduate school, she fell in love with Stanford, history, and her first academic. She laughed and said she would need to be careful because Evarts was a throwback to her wild days. When she said this, she made it sound as if they already had something more than a flirtation.

  He told her he had graduated from California State University at Northridge with a degree in economics. Thankfully, she didn’t ask why he didn’t attend UCSB. High school had too many distractions for him to earn grades good enough for the UC system. He explained that he attended under the ROTC program and joined the army after graduation to fulfill his financial obligation. Economics somehow led the army to believe he had the proper credentials for an intelligence career, and he served most of his four years attached to the Pentagon. When she asked about his East Coast experience, he said that he knew only Washington and the surf beaches along the eastern seaboard.

  They had dissimilar upbringings. He grew up middle-class in a rich community; she grew up wealthy and played with poor kids. She rebelled, while he embraced his parents’ values. The irony was that he still clung to a surfing culture that irritated his parents, while she had become a card-carrying member of the establishment. Both sets of parents seemed intent on indoctrinating them with opposing philosophies of life. Baldwin’s parents wanted her to take responsibility for the broader world, and Evarts’s parents constantly warned him against being sucked up into other people’s passions and agendas.

  Despite the differences, or perhaps because of them, they enjoyed being together and had grown comfortable with each other. A question had been nagging Evarts, so he decided to ask it. “Why did you want to stay at my house the night of the Douglass murder?”

  “I wanted to see how you lived. Why?”

  “That’s my question.”

  “It’s how I size up someone.”

  Evarts wanted to ask how he fared, but she started rummaging in her purse for lipstick, which Evarts had learned was a woman’s way of stifling a conversation. She had said she was attracted to him and wanted to check out how he lived, but other than friendly conversation, she had intimated nothing that went beyond their bond as two unwilling participants in this drama. What was she thinking and why did she not give him a clue?

  Baldwin broke his reverie by asking, “How do you propose to gain entry to one of these subterranean garages?”

  “Easy. I consult on building security. Touchpads at these large complexes always have a backdoor code for the hired help and maintenance. I’ll look for a manufacturer I’m familiar with and try the service codes until we get lucky.”

  “What about your own building?”

  “That’s where we’ll stash my car. No one will pay it any notice in our condo’s assigned parking slot.”

  In about forty minutes, they pulled into Copper Mountain. Evarts had seen it only in winter with snow, cars, and people scattered everywhere, and for a few minutes he felt disoriented. The parking lots and roads appeared expansive without snow mounded on the periphery. He couldn’t believe how much a change in the dominant color from white to green altered the appearance. The ski runs looked like vertical meadows, and Evarts was surprised to see how many boulders and stumps sat implanted in runs he had skied hundreds of times. Copper Mountain a
lso looked like a scene from one of those disaster movies where only the main characters remained among the living. He soon picked out a condominium complex and pulled down a driveway that descended beneath the huge building.

  He tried a code and the gate slowly swung inward. “See. Piece of cake.”

  “Is hot-wiring a car standard police training?” she asked.

  “No need. When I pull up to a car, you slide over to the driver’s seat.”

  The garage held more cars than Evarts had expected. A lot of people must fly into the Denver airport and take public transportation up to the resort. He parked directly behind two Ford Explorers sitting side by side. After he leaped out of his Odyssey, he reached under the back bumper of the one on the right and ran his hand along the entire length. Finding nothing, he repeated the procedure with the next Explorer. Eureka. He held up a little magnetic box for Baldwin to see.

  “Hideakey,” he said with a grin. “Pull forward so I can get out and then follow me.”

  It took less than fifteen minutes to deposit his Odyssey in his own parking space, transfer their belongings, and get on the interstate leading back toward Denver. The white Explorer seemed in good working order and had less than forty thousand miles registered on the gauge.

  They had pulled into Copper Mountain at twilight and had been on the road since six that morning. The night before, they had slept in sleeping bags on the floor of the van at an independent campground. Evarts said, “How about a motel tonight?”

  “Sure. I’m ready to call it a day.”

  “As soon as we get to the Denver suburbs.” He gave her a glance. “We’ll need to stay at a low-end place so they won’t think it odd to pay in cash.”

  “Anything, as long as it has a private bath.”

  Evarts had hoped to share a bath, but he kept this to himself. In another half hour, they saw the Denver skyline, and he pulled off at a sign for a Motel 6. As he threw the Explorer in park, he asked, “One room or two?”

  “One,” she said flatly. “We need to conserve our cash, don’t we?” He fumbled his next question, and she laughed. “A single king bed will do just fine, Mr. Evarts.”