Nevada Barr - Anna Pigeon 11 - Flashback

by Flashback(Lit)

  "Is Dr. Mudd in?" I asked, then realized the stupidity of my question and crossed to the adjoining door without awaiting a reply.

  I felt a bit silly knocking on the door to a prison cell as if I'd come calling of a Saturday afternoon, but simply flinging it open like an invading army was unthinkable. I tapped and called out: "Dr. Mudd? It's Mrs. Coleman. May I speak with you a moment?"

  Rustling came from within and went on much longer than I would have expected. In the heat they may have been resting in a state of undress, so I did not hurry them. At another time it might have crossed my wicked mind to see Mr. Arnold in shirtsleeves or singlet. My mind was so full of Tilly at this moment that I was saved such evil thoughts.

  It was Samuel Arnold and not the doctor who finally opened the door. "Raphaella," he said. "How can I be of assistance?" It took me aback both that he knew my Christian name and that he had the audacity to use it. Since he seemed genuinely pleased to see me-and a man has not looked at me in that way or said my name with such gentleness in a good while-I'm afraid I did not reprimand him as I should have. We all have an unlocked window through which the devil can creep, as Molly was fond of telling us. It's a pity that mine is dangerous-looking men. (Oh. Dear. Peggy, when you are burning up pages of this letter would you expunge that bit as well?)

  This foolishness passed in the blink of an eye, and I do not think I let any of it show on my face. "I'm looking for my sister," I said. "We had an upset over a letter and she ran from me. She's been gone several hours and I've become concerned." Why I decided at this moment to tell the truth and to this man who both frightens and attracts me I cannot say. Certainly not because I trust him above all people-or above any people for that matter. Maybe I told Mr. Arnold because the weight of the situation had been building within me and I needed to shift some of the burden. By shifting it onto one even more helpless than I, I was assured there would be no outcry, no search and no recriminations. Rather like talking to the cat.

  "Miss Tilly was here an hour ago, maybe two," Arnold said. "She didn't stay long."

  "Did she mention where she might go?"

  Arnold laughed a pleasant sound, but I resented it given the state of my nerves. "I well know there is not anywhere to go," I said tartly. "But she is indeed gone, and in a brick box of a thousand men I believe I have cause to be concerned."

  "I'm sorry," he said at once. "I was laughing at my own prospects, not your sister's."

  With the heat and the dashing about, a strand of hair had come loose from the pins and fell in my face. This man actually tucked it back. Of all the schoolboy tricks, that has to be the first one learned. I'd not thought any man over twenty would still be using this crude form of seduction. If indeed it was seduction and not merely an attempt to improve the aesthetics of the cell. To my credit I neither melted nor swooned, but neither did I put him in his place as he most richly deserved.

  "Tilly didn't talk to me; she came to see Mudd," Mr. Arnold said.

  I couldn't but notice he had dropped the honorable title of "doctor" and wondered if they had quarreled. Mr. Arnold did not move from the doorway as I'd expected, and I was forced to ask: "May I speak with him?"

  He stepped aside and, holding the door wide, gestured me through with mock gallantry. Dr. Mudd had fashioned himself a desk of sorts from a wooden cask begged off one of the guards and fitted it with a stool of piled brick. The "desk" had been set to catch what shards of morning sun came through the three deep gun slits high above the floor. At the time of day I was there the sun had moved into the western sky and the cell was uniformly gloomy. Regardless of this, Dr. Mudd was writing, paper and pen sent to him regularly by his wife, along with other items to make his life bearable.

  I stood inside the door, Mr. Arnold to my left, close enough I could sense him without turning to look. The doctor kept right on scratching away. It was bizarre to be kept waiting like a tradesman come looking for work by a man one's husband keeps under lock and key. Another time I might have allowed him this fleeting and petty exercise of power. That day I had no patience for it. "I need to speak with you," I said.

  He looked up, sighed to signify his annoyance and forbearance, and said: "Very well. One moment," and went back to his correspondence.

  The world was topsy-turvy. Tilly turning from bright to dull, Mr. Arnold from sulking to seduction, Joel from man to boy, Sergeant Sinapp from Joseph's lapdog to cur and now Dr. Mudd from prisoner to potentate.

  "My sister came to see you," I said, ignoring his attempt to ignore me. "Mr. Arnold and Private Lane say she met only with you. She has since disappeared. I need to know of what you spoke."

  Dr. Mudd finally rose, perhaps remembering his manners, perhaps merely stretching his legs. "It was a personal matter," he said.

  All at once Sergeant Sinapp's proclivity for stringing traitors up by their thumbs did not seem so incomprehensible.

  "My sister is not yet seventeen years old," I said. "She is under my protection and that of my husband, the captain of this garrison. Until such a time as she comes of age or marries, she has no personal matters. You will tell me what transpired." I didn't add any threat about thumbs and trees, but it was in my voice and my mind, and I could tell he made no mistake about my intentions.

  "Your sister is concerned only with justice, Mrs. Coleman. Have no fears for her moral rectitude."

  The way he stressed "your sister" it was evident he meant to suggest that I, and the rest of the union supporters, were not concerned with justice. I was not in a mood to be challenged on my political beliefs or to second-guess our nation's legal system. Mudd was, of course, referring obliquely to his own innocence, a theme of which he never tires.

  "I am not concerned with her morals," I snapped. "Only with her whereabouts."

  He shrugged and gestured at the limited confines of his cell, and said, "As you can see..."

  Rather than remain and bandy words with a man who had nothing to lose but time, and of that he had a plenitude, I simply said: "Good day, then," and left. It would have been right and good to leave with an especially cutting remark, but I'm afraid Molly raised us too well for that. I did not even slam the door on my way out. He shut it firmly behind me before my skirt had cleared the lintel. Having never been snubbed by a convicted murderer before and having no clear idea where to go next other than to inform Joseph and begin an all-too-public search, I stood a moment inside Joel Lane's casemate.

  Mr. Arnold leaned against the wall beside the door I'd just come through. As seldom as that man stands without support of one structure or another, one cannot but wonder his back has not atrophied.

  "Mrs. Coleman?" Joel had gotten up from his bed, his manners and his maturity evidently relearned while I sparred with his neighbor. "I didn't know Tilly was missing. You told us but it didn't come home to me till you were talking to Samuel. I wouldn't for the world have anything happen to Tilly."

  For an awful moment I thought he was going to cry. There is that about a brutal beating that breaks more than men's bodies. Joel recovered himself and said: "After she left me-us-Dr. Mudd, I heard voices raised outside. I think some of the guards were taunting her. The sentry was with her and there was nothing I could do anyway."

  This last was said with a self-loathing that cut to the heart. For a man to be utterly helpless to defend the woman he loves-or thinks he does-must be a debilitating thing. And I do believe Joel is in love with Tilly. It's Tilly who has cooled toward him, transferring her youthful passion to the supercilious Dr. Mudd. How far that has gone, I cannot say. It occurs to me as I write that today might not have been the first time Tilly visited the conspirators' cell without me.

  "Did you recognize the voices?" I asked.

  "Only Tilly's. I'm sorry."

  Again tears threatened. Maternal urges are rare with me, but I suffered one then, wanting to rush over and hold this sad and battered boy-man. I quashed it. "Which sentry came with her?" I demanded.

  "Private Munson." Joel named the boyish-looking s
oldier who'd been on duty with the vile Sinapp the night Tilly and I found Joel hanging by his thumbs in the sally port.

  "Thank you."

  Sam Arnold walked me to the door. It was only two steps but I appreciated the civility of the gesture. At the threshold he stopped, knowing he could not pass. I rapped loudly to let my smoking escort know I wished to come out. Mr. Arnold leaned close. He is a tall man and, since coming to Fort Jefferson, has worn his hair long. It fell over his face and I could smell the mix of man, salt and tobacco. "Mudd does not mean well by your sister, Mrs. Coleman. He is using her to his own ends. He is not a man to be trusted, especially with the affections of an innocent."

  The door opened and I was allowed to escape.

  Joel's assertion that Tilly had been accosted by, and had heated words with, our own troops and Mr. Arnold's cryptic warning heightened my alarm for her safety. Till then I'd worried only that in her girlish huff over a love letter revealed she'd done something foolish, perhaps injuring or embarrassing herself in the doing. Now I became concerned that either through the natural roughness of our soldiers or the machinations of Dr. Mudd she'd involved herself in something far more dangerous.

  What that could be I had no inkling.

  My chaperone, looking relaxed and reeking of tobacco, locked the door behind me.

  "Are you aware of an altercation of any kind between my sister and the guards an hour or more earlier?" I asked.

  "I am not, ma'am. I have been in the guardroom since two o'clock and nothing's happened. Just hot and more hot and dust and noise like every other day."

  Customarily I can spare a word of sympathy for the plight of the soldiers garrisoned here. This day I could not. "There is a soldier named Munson," I said. "Where is he now?"

  "That'd be Charley Munson, ma'am. I relieved him when I came on duty. He'll be in quarters I expect."

  "Take me to him."

  "He'll be sleeping, ma'am. He was on most of the night."

  "I don't care if he's bathing. I would see him now." I suppose I shocked this old soldier. The prudishness of the old-timers is almost comical.

  Munson was abed. While he was ousted and made ready to receive the captain's wife (a pronouncement I am sure put the fear of God into him), I waited outside near where the new armory is being constructed. These are buildings most fascinating in nature. Of brick, as is the rest of the fort, but with domed ceilings within so the explosives stored there will not be set off even by a direct hit should the fort be attacked.

  Within a short time Mr. Charley Munson, bleary-eyed and stinking of the gin he'd used to put himself to sleep, came blinking out from the barracks set up in the casemates behind the unfinished armory.

  "You were with my sister Tilly when she called upon Joel Lane and Dr. Mudd. Shortly thereafter she had words with some of the men. I need to know what was said and by whom," I said without preamble. Whether he was reluctant to tell me or simply needed time to marshal his muddled thoughts I do not know. For half a minute he shuffled and rubbed at the stubble on his chin.

  "Do I need to fetch my husband?" I threatened. That straightened his spine and cleared his mind. After Sergeant Sinapp's insubordination I was relieved to see this man still respected Joseph's authority enough to be afraid.

  "Now Mrs. Coleman you don't have to go doing that. No, ma'am. I took Miss Tilly up to the rebs' cell, but only like I been told to should you ask. It's captain's orders."

  "To take Miss Tilly up there without a chaperone, Mr. Munson?"

  This breach concerned him, and I felt a moment's pity knowing how Tilly can wrap men around her girlish fingers, but only a moment's.

  "She said you'd be along directly," he defended himself. "She said Lane had taken a turn and needed his pain medicine and it couldn't wait."

  "So you took her to his cell."

  "Yes, ma'am, I did. To tell you the truth, ma'am, I never did go inside with her. She said I was to wait outside. As you'd been in and out so much I never saw any harm in it. I can't tell you what they got up to but it wasn't long. She was out quick as you please and looking like the cat that got at the cream, if you know what I mean."

  "I need to know what occurred once she left the cells."

  "Well, whilst she'd been in there some of the boys kinda got together. You know how it is. Anyway out she comes and so pleased with herself and I'm locking up the door like I'm supposed to and she up and says: 'There won't be nobody to lock up much longer, Mr. Munson.'

  "Of course I got to ask why so I do, and she says: 'You can't keep an innocent man under lock and key.' So I says, don't worry none 'cause her Johnny Reb'll be shipping out with the rest of 'em quick as nevermind. And she says she's not talking about Joel Lane but the other one."

  "Dr. Mudd or Mr. Arnold?" I asked for clarification. Use of the king's English is not one of Mr. Munson's strong suits.

  "She didn't say, but I'm thinking it was the doctor."

  I didn't press him on the point because that was what I was thinking as well. "And the soldiers heard this?"

  "Yes, ma'am, they did and the sergeant took up about it."

  Sergeant Sinapp's involvement in any unpleasant encounter did not surprise me. What did was that Joseph's authority over the man had been undermined to the point he would openly condone-and no doubt participate in-the insubordination of smoking while on duty, a serious offense.

  "What did the sergeant say," I prodded.

  "I can't tell word for word like. Things got kinda fast and snippety."

  I will not put you through any more of the agonizing process of conversing with Mr. Munson than I already have. Suffice to say the vile Sinapp, who you will recall actually put his hands on Tilly when last we suffered his company, spoke to her roughly regarding her unchaperoned visit to the cells, and she responded by baiting him with supposed proof of Dr. Mudd's innocence, coupled with unflattering comparisons of Sinapp to Mudd. The sergeant became angry. He demanded her "proof" and apparently threatened to strip and beat her as a traitor to the union. Tilly, finally showing some tiny semblance of wisdom, fled, "skirts all a-dither" according to Mr. Munson.

  The recital chilled me. Sergeant Sinapp, like any dog of war, cannot be masterless without becoming dangerous to the very people for whom he was trained to fight. I would give a great deal to know what gave Sinapp the upper hand or led him to believe he has the upper hand. Joseph, never the most communicative of men, has become like the Spartan in the old tale. He seems to have a purloined fox under his coat and will let it devour his entrails before he will admit to stealing it.

  Mr. Munson, being unable to tell me anything else of value but that Tilly had run toward the northeastern bastion and not toward the spiral stairs closer by, I returned to the second level of the fort above the guardroom and began making my way around it. Many of the casemates along that side of the fort have been boarded up on the parade ground side to fashion cells. This is not true of those first in line. These have remained open and have been used for various things during my time here: barracks, sick ward and prisoners' mess. Currently they are used as a catchall for brick, board, armament and machinery.

  Because that was the direction Tilly was said to have run after her altercation with "the boys," I picked my way through the piles looking for some sign of her. I found two of the fort's cats, essential in a place as frequented by rodents as a port of call for ships. Neither was pursuing its avocation. One slept in the sun, a long and leggy pattern in tiger stripes. The other I found by following small helpless cries. Thinking to find a repentant girl I found instead a mama cat and four kittens hidden behind a rampart of board ends and broken brick.

  Several casemates down, just before the cells began in earnest with heavy timbers and locked doors for our less-trustworthy clientele, I again heard the mewling of a small frightened creature.

  "Tilly?" I called and was answered by a furtive scuffling noise. This part of the fort has a peculiarity that caused me a moment's confusion. Then I found my way down a narrow bri
ck passage. To my right lay one even narrower and shaped like an L, where no light could penetrate. I remembered from our first tour of Fort Jefferson three years ago that this was one of several secure chambers built for the storage of gunpowder. Since that time I'd not had any cause to visit.

  "Tilly?" I called again, and feeling along the wall for guidance, I went in.

  19

  Three hours' sleep, which served to whet her appetite for bed rather than refresh her, and Anna went in search of Daniel. Shops, quarters and generator rooms were empty of bipeds. She found him by the docks, head and shoulders buried in the engine box of the Curious.

  "Hundred-hour check?" she said for openers.

  Daniel withdrew from the engine compartment, wiping his hands on a red oil rag. For an instant Anna was put in mind of her father. He, too, had been a stocky man of endless strength, scarred knuckles permanently blackened by years of working on airplane engines.