These Honored Dead

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  “You must have had to pay off all their remaining debts to redeem them from the poorhouse,” I said. “How did you manage, especially these days?”

  “I managed,” Rebecca said simply. “My ledger’s remained decently firm. Fewer and fewer people are paying in cash, of course, but the private drafts I’ve had to take have held up in value pretty well.

  “Lilly was very aware of my situation,” she added. “I imagine she was afraid of ending up back in the poorhouse. When we came home from Springfield that day, she assured me she’d earn enough money to pay her and Jesse’s expenses. I don’t think she had the first idea how, but surely she wished it’d be so.”

  Thinking back to the village fair the previous summer, I felt confident Lilly would have been skilled in contributing financially to Rebecca’s household had she lived.

  “Let me help you,” I said. “Send some customers your way, perhaps, or give you some goods to sell on consignment. I know you must be low on capital.”

  “I’ll manage on my own, Joshua,” she said. “Always have.”

  “But—”

  She put her finger over my lips and let me kiss it without protest. But when I moved to embrace her more fully, she pulled away and started adjusting her petticoat and fixing its laces. I had a final, fleeting glimpse of the softness of her breasts before they disappeared beneath the many folds of her garment. And without further congress, we parted.

  CHAPTER 9

  The following Monday morning, I sat opposite Lincoln at the heavily scarred common table in the dim public room of the Globe Tavern, waiting for the innkeeper Saunders to bring us our breakfast. The Globe was a ramshackle two-story building that stood around the corner from our lodgings. There were a number of finer places to eat in Springfield, but none was more convenient.

  Lincoln held the back page of the Sangamo Journal close to his nose as he scanned the small-type columns of legal notices—estates being probated, land sales, tax rolls, debtors’ auctions.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Employment,” he said, his head still buried in the paper. “All these people need lawyers. A few might even be able to pay for one. I’d be overjoyed to collect a debt for a three-dollar hog.”

  “I suppose this hasn’t been the most favorable time to commence law practice.”

  Lincoln gave a short laugh and put down the paper. “No, indeed,” he said, a lopsided smile creasing his face. “Logan might have warned me, when he was extolling the virtues of Springfield, that a financial panic was coming. Reminds me of a farmer I knew up in New Salem. He’d go on and on about how juicy his peaches were. The man would not shut up about his peaches. Ah, here we go.”

  Saunders had finally arrived with breakfast. He set down on the table between us a battered metal plate containing several rashers of ham, sausages, boiled potatoes, bread and butter, and two large mugs of coffee. Lincoln and I took up our knives and dug in.

  “Of course,” Lincoln said after he’d wolfed down a few bites, “that farmer in New Salem? He forgot to mention he’d cut down all the peach trees for firewood the previous winter.”

  He laughed heartily and I joined him.

  “That’s more like it,” he said.

  “What’s more like it?”

  “You’re being quiet. You have been, ever since Saturday evening.”

  “Perhaps I have.”

  “I heard you and Simeon rode up to Menard on Saturday.”

  I nodded as I chewed.

  “Is your business so bad you’re thinking of taking on the sheriff’s job?” Lincoln asked. “Or Simeon’s?”

  “Of course not. I—”

  There was a loud jangling of a bell. Two young boys materialized and sprinted through the public room toward the street. The Globe doubled as the stage line office, and the bell signaled the arrival of a new stage, bringing prospective customers as well as horses needing to be watered. Saunders bustled through the room, and soon we could hear him haggling with the new arrivals over the price of room and board.

  Lincoln gestured to me with his knife. “You were saying?”

  “I think it’s only natural I have an interest in the girl’s murder. As I’ve said, I know the Widow Harriman. Through the trade, of course. And it turns out I had met the niece once previously, or seen her, at least.”

  “‘Through the trade,’ yes,” Lincoln said with a sly smile. “I believe I’ve heard you say that before.” He gulped down a potato. “In fact, I was speaking to Prickett yesterday about his investigation.”

  “Do they have any suspects?” I asked quietly, so the soot-faced blacksmith at the far end of the table could not hear.

  “Prickett told me he’s more convinced than ever that the widow, your acquaintance through the trade, is the one responsible.”

  I felt my temper flaring. “It’s nonsense,” I said. “Why would she have wanted to slay her own kin? And gruesomely so. There’s no logic to it at all.”

  “That’s not how Prickett sees it,” Lincoln returned.

  Before I could respond, the proprietor of another store on the square stopped by the table and asked Lincoln a few questions about a dispute he’d been having with a customer over a rotten barrel of beer. Lincoln patiently listened to the merchant’s complaints and advised him to split the difference with his customer. The merchant wandered off, still mumbling about the unfairness of the situation.

  “That’s the sort of free advice that’s going to put you under if you’re not careful,” I said as we watched him go.

  “Spoken like a true businessman,” Lincoln said with a rueful nod. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “If you’re giving out free advice—” I began, but Lincoln glanced at his pocket watch and pushed his chair back with a groan.

  “I’m due in court soon,” he said. “Dr. Patterson’s case. Walk with me. Last time I was two minutes late for my hearing, I couldn’t remember where I’d left my notes. Judge Thomas was awfully hard on me.”

  Lincoln was dressed in his formal frockcoat and bow tie. He stood and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. Then he checked the pockets of his trousers and coat and, finding nothing, started looking around frantically. Laughing, I pointed to the floor beside his chair, where he’d set down a thin packet of papers when we’d arrived some thirty minutes earlier.

  “Why don’t you take my hat?” I said. “I think we’re the same size. You can keep your notes here, in the band.”

  I habitually wore a different hat from my inventory each day as a form of walking advertisement. That day, I happened to have a tall, black stovepipe hat with a band of black velvet running circumferentially above the brim. Lincoln looked the hat over quickly, twirling it in his hands, and then tucked his packet of papers into the band. When he settled it atop his head, the combined height of the man and his costume nearly reached to the ceiling.

  Outside on the street, the summer sun was already beating down without mercy. I raced to keep up with Lincoln, taking three strides for his two.

  “Since you’re in the habit of handing out free legal advice,” I persisted, “I’ll take some myself. What’s the best way for me to help the investigation into this wretched girl’s death?”

  “Is your principal interest finding the killer or merely ensuring the Widow Harriman does not face legal jeopardy?”

  I considered this as we turned the corner and headed for the town square. “Both—but mostly the latter, I suppose. Of course, I’m dreadfully sorry about what happened to the young woman. But she’s gone now. I don’t want the tragedy compounded by an unjust accusation against her aunt, who’d taken her in out of the goodness of her heart.”

  Lincoln looked over at me skeptically. I was going to have to be more adept in my defense of Rebecca, I realized, if I wanted it to make a difference.

  We had reached the town green, and we walked past a large rectangular cornerstone surrounded by unruly weeds. The Illinois state legislature had voted to move the st
ate capital to Springfield some months earlier, and like the rest of the village’s merchants, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the high aspirations and low business of government.

  A grand new capitol building and courthouse was to rise in the center of the town square, and its perimeter was already chalked out in the grassy field. But after an elaborate ceremony to lay the cornerstone of the new building, the town fathers had thought to ask who was going to pay for the project. The town thought the legislature should; the legislature thought the reverse; and the increasingly cash-poor banks announced they would not lend to either group. Construction had come to a halt, and the lonely cornerstone remained the full extent of the state government in Springfield.

  In the meantime, the legal business of Sangamon County continued to be conducted in the old courthouse in front of us. It was a two-story brick building, topped by a low, hipped roof and a cupola. The structure had long ago begun to fall into disrepair, and its brick walls bowed outward perilously.

  “If I were you,” said Lincoln, “I’d start by finding out the basis for Prickett’s conjecture. The man’s a snake in the grass, but he has some relationship, however distant, with the facts. There must be something he’s learned that’s caused him to view the widow with heightened suspicion.”

  We reached the courthouse steps and I pulled open the heavy oak door for Lincoln. At that moment, the senior lawyer Logan, a lit corncob pipe clutched in his hand, hurried up from behind us. None other than Prickett was at his side.

  “That’s quite a hat,” Logan said to Lincoln with a laugh. And the two lawyers pushed past us into the courtroom.

  “Did I tell you? Logan’s my adversary today,” Lincoln said. “The old saw is right. A man who’s the only lawyer in town has got nothing to do, but once a second lawyer arrives, neither of them will ever want for work.” He chuckled and ducked inside.

  I hesitated for a moment then followed him in. Lincoln’s advice made sense; I would see what I could learn from Prickett.

  The courtroom was a dark, shabby affair, a long, narrow room with six crowded rows of wooden benches in the back for spectators and two counsel tables in the front of the room. At the far end rose a low platform that served as the judge’s bench. The entire room was obscured by a thick haze of smoke clinging menacingly to the low ceiling like storm clouds converging on the prairie.

  Peering through the smoke, I saw the audience this morning consisted of some two dozen persons, mostly lawyers waiting to be heard on other matters, along with a smatter of village residents who habitually attended court sessions as a form of free entertainment. I spotted Prickett off to the far right of the gallery and headed in his direction.

  Lincoln was seated on the other side, conferring in whispered tones with Dr. Patterson. Patterson was a small, precise man with thinning hair and an elaborate moustache. As usual, he was wearing his double-breasted, knee-length surgical coat. Dark splotches on the navy blue coat served to advertise the many surgeries he had conducted. It had occurred to me to wonder whether Patterson chose to display these visual reminders of his craft because of the scarcity of living patients who could testify to his services. Next to Patterson was an attractive young woman with light brown hair: his daughter.

  In front of us, Judge Thomas was concluding a prior hearing. As I slid in next to Prickett, the judge dismissed the lawyers with an impatient wave of his hand and said to my friend Matheny, who was working as the clerk today, “Call the next matter.”

  “Patterson against Richmond,” shouted Matheny in a voice an octave deeper than his usual one. Logan and Lincoln stepped forward into the well of the courtroom.

  “What’s this one about, Logan?” the judge asked.

  “If I may be heard first—” began Lincoln.

  “You may not,” Judge Thomas said severely. Jesse B. Thomas Jr. looked like a pugilist, with a brawny body; a wide-set, florid face; and a permanent sneer. I had never seen him without a smoldering cigar clenched in his fist, and he now gestured angrily with it toward Lincoln.

  “I appreciate greatly you are on-time today, Mr. Lincoln,” the judge continued, “but in my courtroom, you will speak when spoken to, and not before. Now, Logan—”

  The judge looked over at the senior lawyer, who had been sucking happily on his pipe stem during the exchange between the judge and Lincoln. In front of me, the doctor and his daughter exchanged worried glances.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Logan began with a flourish of his arms. “Your Honor, this is a case of land fraud. My client, Major Sylvester Richmond, is an esteemed veteran of the Late War with Great Britain. The government granted him his bounty land, over in the Military Tract, and earlier this year he contracted to sell it to Dr. Patterson. But then, over the summer, as land prices began to collapse . . .”

  I shifted my focus to Prickett on the wooden bench next to me. The prosecutor had been intently studying several packets of paper in his lap, paying no attention to my presence or to the proceeding in front of us. I knocked against his shoulder and whispered, “Pardon me. I didn’t see you there.”

  “Speed,” he said with a nod, then looked down again at his papers.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I whispered, “regarding the murder of the Menard girl—have you made any progress in your inquiries?”

  “A good deal,” he replied without looking up.

  “What have you—”

  Suddenly there was a commotion in front of us. An older man had been sitting in the first row of the gallery, directly behind Logan, dressed in full military regalia with a blue coat, white breeches, and a tall plumed hat, all badly faded. This was, presumably, the esteemed Major Richmond. He was on his feet now, pointing at Patterson with a trembling arm.

  “We had a contract,” Richmond shouted, his prominent nose glistening an angry red. The crowd murmured excitedly.

  “No, we didn’t,” growled Dr. Patterson, turning in his seat to glare at Richmond across the gallery. “We never signed anything. We—”

  “Silence!” shouted the judge, banging his gavel with so much force I thought it would split in two. “Only the lawyers may speak in my courtroom. If either of you says another word”—he pointed with the burning end of his cigar toward Patterson and Richmond in turn—“I’ll have the sheriff throw you in his jail cell.”

  Richmond sat down, still shaking his fist in anger and muttering to himself. Patterson and his daughter exchanged self-righteous looks.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Logan resumed smoothly. “As I was saying, the nub of the matter is Dr. Patterson doesn’t want to pay the agreed upon price for the land anymore. He doesn’t want to fulfill his agreement, given what’s been happening to land values, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell Your Honor.”

  An angry shadow passed over Judge Thomas’s face and he spit into a tarnished spittoon resting at the side of his bench. I expected the judge carried in his pocket at that very moment a half dozen land deeds; most officials did these days, and in my experience, they were constantly monitoring the prices at which similar properties were exchanging hands.

  I turned back to Prickett. “What have you found?” I whispered. “I’d like to help you, if I can.”

  “You don’t want to know where the investigation is going,” he replied in a low voice. “Trust me.”

  “If you mean to suggest you still think the Widow Harriman had some involvement, I’m sure you’re wrong,” I replied in an urgent whisper. “She’s a kindly woman. She’d just rescued her niece and nephew, an act of Christian charity. Why would she have done so if she meant to harm the girl?”

  Prickett did not reply. In front of us, Logan had completed his argument and sat down with a self-satisfied smile. Lincoln stood and, reaching a long arm up to his hat, pulled out the thin packet of papers from its band. As he smoothed out the pages, his hands trembled slightly.

  “Your Honor,” Lincoln began, a little shrilly, “my brother counsel does not state all the facts of the matte
r. In reality—”

  As Lincoln began to lay out his client’s position, Dr. Patterson and his daughter whispered back and forth with vigor. His arm rested lightly, comfortingly, on her shoulder. I found myself staring at the daughter. She appeared to be a year or two shy of twenty, about the same age Lilly had been. Her pretty, fresh face was not unlike Lilly’s had been in life. Why had Fate rendered one an orphan in a poorhouse and then the prey of some horrible villain, while the other enjoyed the loving attentions of her prosperous father? What grand design, I wondered, what higher purpose was served by such bitter inequality?

  Lincoln’s final peroration broke into my contemplations. “And so, Your Honor,” he said, his voice cracking as it rose, “what the parties had here was an agreement to agree, not an agreement on the ultimate res itself. When they came to no final agreement regarding that res—the bounty land of Major Richmond—Dr. Patterson was free to walk away, and that’s exactly the right he’s exercised.”

  Logan rose to respond, but Judge Thomas waved him back into his chair. “I’ve heard enough for one day,” the judge said. “Save your breath. The clerk will put you down for trial in the September Term.

  “In the meantime,” the judge continued, “the court takes notice of the evident hostility between the two litigants. Dr. Patterson, Major Richmond”—the judge punched the air with his cigar as if jabbing an invisible opponent—“stay clear of each other. If I hear of either of you disturbing the other before I resolve this dispute at trial, I will have you jailed. Understood?”

  Each man grumbled it was, and the judge directed the clerk Matheny to call the next matter. Prickett turned to me and said, “Then why did she lie about the murder weapon? She told us she’d never seen one like it. But the sheriff and I were out at her cabin again last week and we found another ‘Bowie’ knife, an exact match, hidden in her backhouse.”