Fiddlehead

by Cherie Priest

Page 7

 

  Grant harrumphed and scowled into the fire, as if he were asking it for a second opinion. “What if we could get Southern casualty reports? Send some spies out in search of accurate figures to feed into your machine. That’d give us a better idea of what we’re up against, wouldn’t it? It’d give us a hint about how open they’d be to … a conversation, as you put it. ”

  Lincoln’s good eye glittered warmly. “It might. But, as you’ll recall, there was an explosion last night—speaking of spies. ”

  “I’m sorry, come again?”

  “Two men,” he told him. “If not spies, then mercenaries—sent to destroy the Fiddlehead, and kill the man who’d created it. From Gideon’s report, I doubt either one of them would’ve thought to make the attack alone. Someone paid them to make the effort. ”

  “Any idea who?”

  A slow, knowing smile spread across Lincoln’s crooked face. “Who? Not precisely. But I appreciate that we both understand the why, and that we choose not to insult one another by pretending. ”

  “You want to blame warhawks like Desmond, or his brethren on the other side of the line. But why would they go after your calculation machine? How many people even know it exists? How many people would put stock in the conclusions of a … a … a fortune-telling heap of nuts and bolts, assembled by a colored man? No one. ”

  “I may be permanently seated and long out of office, but I’m not exactly no one,” Lincoln replied stiffly. “Gideon’s work is sound. The machine is unprecedented, a marvel of science—and you just wait”—he waved one warning finger—“history will bear this out. The war has to end. We have to turn our attention to the leper threat. We must bury all the dead and see to it that they remain buried. ”

  “I can’t push a button and end hostilities,” Grant fussed … but again he thought of Desmond Fowler, whose clandestine program might do just that. “You can’t ask for such a thing based on a pile of paper that no one understands but you. And your team of tinkers,” he amended quickly. “I can’t go in front of Congress with the message that Abe Lincoln says we should all find some hobby other than war because dead men walk and we should do something about that, instead. You have to bring me more than this. ”

  Lincoln slumped back in his chair, his good eye narrowed. “I don’t have more. Not yet. And someone—perhaps a Southerner, perhaps someone in your own administration—is working hard to make sure I don’t come up with any additional evidence. ”

  “How so?”

  “Because they went after Gideon, and when they couldn’t catch him, they went for his family. They’ve taken his mother and nephew—kidnapped the pair of them without so much as a note. Dragged them back to Alabama, I suppose. But I’ve called in a good man to recover them, one of the old Liberation Rangers. You’d know the name if I said it, but then you’d have to do something about him, so I’ll leave it there. ”

  “Ah. Then I can make my guess. I remember the old case well—nasty business, that. I appreciate your discretion. But as for the scientist’s family … you think it was a lure? Something to take him away from his work?”

  “As likely as not. Gideon is the only man on earth who could rebuild or re-create the machine. Someone, somewhere, already knows what the Fiddlehead will tell us—and without that machine, it’s our suspicions versus their profit. Our word against theirs. ”

  “The word of a former slave—a political fugitive. It won’t carry much weight. ”

  “Then add the word of a former president. A political figure, instead. It will carry more weight than you think, and they know it. They’re afraid I’ll say something, but they’re unwilling or unable to come for me. So they reach instead for Gideon, thinking that I have nothing without him, and thinking that he’s vulnerable. ”

  “And I expect they’ll learn the hard way that he’s not. ” Grant mustered a friendly grin.

  Lincoln closed his eye. When he opened it again, it was to plead with him. “Yes, they will. But I need your help while I hold them at bay. ”

  “What can I give you? Money? Men? I know you don’t think much of the Secret Service, and neither do I sometimes … but they’re at our disposal. ”

  “Oh, no. I can’t trust them any more than you can. I’ll stick with the Pinks, if you don’t mind—they’ve kept me alive this long. Mr. President, my old friend … what I need is information. ”

  Three

  Maria Boyd, sometimes called Belle and sometimes Isabella, stamped her feet and wished she was sitting closer to the big iron furnace in the corner of the room. She drew her shawl around her shoulders and eyed the empty desk beside the big iron hearth, where Andrew Kelly usually sat. He was away on assignment, and wouldn’t be back for a week.

  One long, cold week.

  “To hell with it,” she muttered. After all, no one was present to object: Rose Anderson was out of the office chasing down a murderer in Minnesota; Fred Williams was eyeballs deep in legal paperwork following that affair in New York last Tuesday; and Timothy Hall had been sent down to the jailhouse to bail out Percy Jones—who had gone and done it again, and might get fired this time, depending on the boss’s mood.

  Only James Elders was left on the main floor of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency office. And yes, he’d probably notice if she moved seats, because he noticed every time she moved anything, and was not precisely subtle about it.

  Maria wasn’t worried that he’d tattle to Mr. Pinkerton, who probably cared less than anyone in the whole of Chicago, but she didn’t want to look weak. She hated looking weak like men hated looking foolish, and she worked studiously to prove that she was up to the same tasks as everyone else.

  In fact, no one really doubted it. No one dared doubt it, because Allan Pinkerton himself had brought her on board last spring, politics and precedent be damned. If the old Union spy believed that the former Confederate spy was worth her salt, then everyone else who wanted a paycheck had best believe it, too. But that didn’t mean they had to be nice to her, so every day she worked to prove that she belonged.

  But she didn’t belong.

  Not in that office, typing up notes and filing signed papers, stamping the backs of checks and sorting telegrams like a secretary. Not in Chicago, either, where the heat-flash of summer suddenly gave way to a winter like nothing she’d ever known in Virginia. And Virginia got plenty cold, thank you very much … as she found herself reminding coworkers who teased her about her fingerless gloves and layers of scarves.

  Not as cold as this, though. November on Lake Michigan, and the whole world might be frozen, so far as she knew.

  On the rare occasions when she felt like defending herself, she insisted that there hadn’t been time to do any shopping when she’d accepted the job offer. She’d packed her things and caught the first train to Illinois, desperate to escape an increasingly unhappy situation south of the Mason-Dixon, where she’d come under scrutiny that stopped just shy of an allegation of treason. She’d married against advice, been widowed against her will, and, if it weren’t for the once-celebrated spy’s continued friendship with General Jackson, she might’ve met a court-martial in her mourning dress.

  Adding insult to injury, she hadn’t been able to redeem herself yet, as she’d become altogether too famous for further espionage work.

  Or any other work, as it turned out.

  The CSA no longer trusted her, and the newspapers accused her of terrible things. What meager fortune her family possessed was lost in the war, her father’s hotel burned, rebuilt, and then seized for taxes under flimsy circumstances. He’d died shortly thereafter, and her brothers were dead, too, lost to the war effort. One sister had succumbed to cholera while working as a nurse in a field hospital. One served as caregiver to her husband, badly wounded at the second battle of Shiloh.

  There was no money, and what was left of her family was starving.

  Maria Boyd wrote a book and gave tours, speaking
about her time in Union prisoner-of-war camps and retelling her adventures as a spy, but it wasn’t enough to keep anyone fed. She turned to acting, and the reviews were good but the pay was poor. She worked as a cab driver—one of the only women driving in Georgia, if not the whole continent. A seamstress. A cook. A governess. A messenger.

  And still they went hungry.

  So when the invitation came from Pinkerton—so unexpected and so unlikely—Maria was just desperate enough to take it, for here was a chance at an honest, interesting job that would earn her enough to eat, and to share.

  In truth, her options were narrowing by the day. She could turn detective, or she could stoop to the prostitution of which she’d so often been accused—a prospect that might’ve been brighter in her youth. But so late in her thirties? She’d surely still starve, only more ignobly.

  So she leaped, all the way from Front Royal, Virginia, to Chicago, Illinois.

  She leaped with all her worldly belongings, which fit in a single steamer trunk and carpetbag. These worldly belongings had in fact included a coat, but the coat was insufficient for even a Virginia winter, never mind one in Illinois, and she wasn’t dishonest enough to write off a new one as an expense.

  Not quite yet.

  She gathered her bag and the case notes she was writing up and moved. Andrew Kelly’s desk was warmer by far. Maria sighed, loosened one of her scarves, and smiled to feel the furnace-warmed typewriter keys beneath her fingertips. Only three more invoices to record and file and she’d be finished for the day.

  Allan Pinkerton’s office door opened with a crash.

  The aging Scotsman stormed through it just like he stormed everyplace, as if he could function at no other speed. His eyes landed on Maria’s now-empty desk, then found her over at her borrowed spot, her fingers hovering guiltily over the typewriter keys.

  “Maria!” he barked. He’d dispensed with any naming formalities months ago.