The Fifth Assassin

by Brad Meltzer

  As we reach the very last row, the last two pews are roped off by more police tape, where the killer took his first shot at the rector. More placards with little arrows on them mark the blood spatter along the pews and wood floor. This time, though, I know the pew we’re looking at—the one that’s more famous than all the others combined.

  The Lincoln Pew.

  It’s the last pew, the very last row. Back in the 1860s, Lincoln used to walk across the street from the White House, sneak into this pew in the back, and then disappear before the church service was over. The gold plaque on the wall reads: He was always alone.

  “So the killer shot at the rector from this pew?” Tot asks.

  Hayden says something, but I don’t hear it. I study the pew… the wooden bench… the hardwood floor. But the closer I look… Something’s not right.

  “Okay, you’ve seen the pew. Now can we go?” Hayden begs.

  I don’t move.

  “Beecher, what’s wrong?” Tot asks. “You see something?”

  I don’t answer.

  Next to me, Tot rolls the pen he’s still holding against the tip of his beard. Following my sightline, his good eye scrolls along the bench, up to the stained glass window that hangs above it, then over to the back wall of the church, which is flush with the back of the pew. He still doesn’t see it.

  “We need to go,” Hayden says. “The detectives made me call all our employees. They said everyone had to stay home, so if they find you here…”

  “Hayden, I need two minutes,” I tell him.

  “You said you’d be quick!” Hayden says to Tot.

  “Hayden,” I bark, raising my voice just enough that he turns my way. “Listen to me. Do you know who Joseph B. Stewart is?”

  Hayden pauses, confused. “Who?” he asks, checking over his shoulder. “Is that a congregant?”

  “Listen to me,” I insist. “On the night that Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre, Joseph B. Stewart was the only member of the audience who actually got up out of his seat and chased after John Wilkes Booth. Think of it a moment. The President is dying. A single metal ball is shot into Lincoln’s brain and lodges behind his right eye. Of course, hundreds of people start screaming, but in that moment, Joseph B. Stewart keeps his wits, gets up from his front-row seat, and jumps across the orchestra pit to try to grab Booth as the assassin darts across the stage. Stewart actually hopped across the chair tops as he ran after him. And yes, Booth got away. But for those first days after the shooting, it was Joseph B. Stewart who was America’s hero.”

  “I don’t see your point,” Hayden says.

  “The point is, he’s now forgotten by history, but when he was faced with that challenge, he did what was right. So now it’s your turn, Hayden. I need two minutes here. You really want to kick us out?”

  Hayden stands there, motionless, digesting every word.

  “Just please…” Hayden begs, once again checking over his shoulder. “Be quick.”

  6

  I dart toward the back of the church and head past the police-taped area, into the small anteroom that leads out to the public entrance.

  “Beecher…!” Tot calls out, speed-limping behind me.

  I don’t slow down.

  “Beecher… will you—? What’d you find?”

  “Tot, on the night of Lincoln’s assassination in Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth didn’t just come in and pull the trigger. Tell me what you know about the precautions he took.”

  He knows the story. “He drilled a hole in the door.”

  “Exactly. Hours before the play started, Booth went up to Lincoln’s box and drilled a peephole in the right side of the door so he could see inside and make sure there were no guards. And what else?” I ask.

  “He took a long, narrow piece of pine—the neck of an old music stand—and he hid it in the box so that once he was inside, he could use it to bar the door.”

  “And what about the weapons?”

  “Forty-four caliber, single-shot Derringer pistol. But since it only had that one shot, he also brought a knife that—” Tot cuts himself off, knowing what it said about the rector in the police report. Shot once in the back; throat slit in the front. “Wait. You really think—?”

  “Look for yourself,” I say, reaching up toward an old framed watercolor that hangs on the wall. The picture shows the church back when it and the White House were the only two buildings on the block. But as I pull the frame from the wall…

  There it is.

  Just under the nail that holds the picture in place is a small round peephole. Even from here, I can tell it goes through the wall and into the Lincoln Pew.

  “That’s when I started looking for this…” I add, pointing to the church’s main doors—and the metal urn that serves as an umbrella stand. There are two stray umbrellas in there. Plus one long, narrow piece of pine.

  “Oh my,” Hayden whispers.

  “So you think your friend is a John Wilkes Booth copycat?” Tot asks.

  I stay silent, still sifting through the details. Between the time of death… the way it was set up… and all that preparation to make it just right… This is more than a copycat. This is a full-on re-creation. And if it’s a re-creation…

  No.

  Pulling out my phone, I scroll through my emails.

  Tot watches me carefully, tapping the pen against his beard. “Beecher, tell me what you’re not saying.”

  “On that night that John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger, every single detail—large or small—is accounted for,” I say, still scrolling through my phone. “How Booth planned it… the coconspirators he worked with… the type of drink he had at the saloon next door…”

  “Whiskey with water,” Tot says.

  “But what’s the one detail, the only one in nearly a hundred and fifty years that no one—and I mean no one—can account for?”

  Tot doesn’t even pause. “How Booth got past the White House valet.”

  “Bingo. How Booth got past the White House valet.”

  Reading the confused look on Hayden’s face, I explain, “Back then, security in Ford’s Theatre was beyond pathetic. The police officer who was supposed to be guarding Lincoln’s private box actually left his post so he could get a better view of the play. So when Booth finally made his way up there, the only one standing guard was Charles Forbes, Lincoln’s White House valet. Historians agree that, at that moment, Booth stopped and spoke to the valet. They agree that Booth showed the valet a card. But the one thing no one knows is what was on the card. What’d Booth show him? What’d it say?”

  “Some say it was a letter,” Tot points out. “Others say it was Booth’s business card, which, since he was a famous actor, would certainly open doors.”

  “But again, the reason the valet stepped aside and let Booth into Lincoln’s private box was because of whatever was on that magic card.”

  Tot knows me long enough to know I’m not done.

  “Don’t tell me you know what’s on that card, Beecher.”

  I shoot him a look, motioning down to my phone. “Remember that thing that they found in the suspect’s pocket?”

  He nods. I’m talking about Marshall having my name and phone number.

  “Well, I take notice when people have that on them. So when we were driving here, I had Mac send me the full list of his belongings. Look what else he had with him…”

  I push a button on the phone, and an image pops open onscreen. I hold it up to Tot, making sure he gets a good look.

  Tot squints. Hayden leans in.

  “Old playing cards?” Hayden asks.

  “A full deck of them,” I say. “Nineteenth-century, from the look of them.”

  “I still don’t see what this had to do with John Wilkes Booth’s mystery card.”

  “Well, God bless the D.C. Police for cataloging each and every item, because when I went through their full list, there was actually one card missing from the deck: the ace of spades.”

  7r />
  Beecher, you lost me,” Tot says.

  “The deck of cards,” I say. “It’s missing its ace of spades. He’s carrying a deck of cards where one card is missing!”

  “Okay, so unless we’re fighting the Riddler, is that supposed to mean something?”

  “Look around…!” I say, pointing from the peephole, to the pine bar in the umbrella stand. “This guy—”

  “You mean Marshall.”

  “We don’t know it’s Marshall. But whoever he is, he’s meticulously re-created every last detail of Abraham Lincoln’s murder, which, let’s be clear, only happened because John Wilkes Booth was let inside the building after flashing some mysterious long-lost card. And now the one guy we’re looking at happens to be carrying, of all things… long-lost cards.”

  “Can I just say,” Hayden interrupts, still struggling to follow, “even if this is the historical card you’re speaking of, who would he even give it to? The church was locked last night. No one was here.”

  “What about this morning?” I ask. “He could’ve left it for someone. Were you the first one in?”

  “I’m always the first one in. And I told you, when they called me last night, I notified every employee and asked them all to stay home today.”

  “What about the guy with the sign-in sheet?” I ask.

  “Excuse me?” Hayden says.

  “When we walked in… the guy… the one in the cheap suit…” Tot says, holding up the pen he gave him. “He told me we had to sign in.”

  “I thought he was—” Hayden stops. “Hold on. He’s not a detective?”

  My shirt sticks to my chest. “They said all the detectives were at lunch,” I point out.

  Tot looks down at the pen. I’m not sure what he’s staring at. I may know Lincoln history, but he’s been at this far longer than I have. On a hunch, he unscrews the pen as fast as he can. The front half holds the thin metal pen tube. But in the back half… there’s a small red wire connected to an even smaller transmitter. A microphone. We’ve been holding a microphone the entire time.

  Tot shoots me a look.

  I run full speed, racing back down the aisle of the church and toward the staff offices in back. Whoever this guy is, he couldn’t have gotten far.

  8

  When we walked in… the guy… the one in the cheap suit…” the older man known as Tot said. “He told me we had to sign in.”

  “I thought he was—Hold on. He’s not a detective?”

  Crossing through the slush on H Street and entering the well-plowed edges of Lafayette Park, Secret Service agent A.J. Ennis kept his pace slow and steady, barely even registering the “cheap suit” comment. Instead, following his training and staying focused on the problem at hand, he turned up the volume on the thin receiver that was tucked into his jacket pocket.

  For A.J., it was simple enough to slip them the pen with the transmitter. He’d actually stolen the idea from an overwrought mystery novel he read a few years back where some plucky investigator did the same.

  In the novel, the investigator saved the day and, naturally, rode off into the sunset. But A.J. knew that life, especially his current life, was no longer that simple.

  “Dammit,” he muttered to himself, seeing the No Signal message on the receiver and running his hand along the back of his buzzed blond hair. They had found the transmitter. Most people never found it, which told A.J. that what they warned him about was right. Beecher and Tot weren’t novices. But then again, neither was A.J.

  There was a reason A.J. had been sent to the church. It was the same reason A.J. was the one who accompanied President Orson Wallace out to Camp David, and on that off-the-record visit back in Ohio that tested his loyalty to the President. Luckily for A.J., he had passed.

  It wasn’t all luck, of course. As a kid in Johnson City, Tennessee, A.J. Ennis used to dream of being Jacques Cousteau. But when his father got sick and his mother went bankrupt, young A.J.’s dreams became far more realistic.

  Not for long. After Business School at Duke and three tedious years as an investment banker, the explorer once again reemerged, knowing that there were more exciting things to chase than money. As he applied for the Secret Service, luck had nothing to do with his getting hired or promoted, or how quickly he made his way over to the President’s Protective Detail. The Service knows talent when it sees it.

  What it didn’t know was that thirty years ago, A.J.’s father was one of President Orson Wallace’s dearest friends from law school. A.J. never pointed out the connection or took advantage of it, but he knew it made him lucky.

  It made the President’s best friend, Dr. Stewart Palmiotti, even luckier, since after the funeral, A.J. was the one who helped Palmiotti set up his new identity.

  Yet the luckiest of all?

  A.J.’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Caller ID said “King’s Copiers,” a copy shop in Maryland that had closed at least two years ago. Maybe even three.

  “A.J. here,” he said, picking up.

  There was silence on the other end.

  “You were right about the church,” A.J. said.

  There was no reply.

  “They’re both there. I saw him. It was definitely Beecher.” Before another bit of silence hit, A.J. added, “I know it’s not ideal, sir. But it doesn’t mean it’s a total disaster. We can still—”

  There was a click. The President of the United States hung up.

  With a flurry of tapping, A.J. dialed another number.

  The phone rang once… twice…

  Palmiotti picked up without even saying hello. “Where’ve you been?” he asked. “Do you need me down there? I can be there in—”

  “Don’t come down here.”

  “But I can—”

  A.J. wanted to scream at him. But in these past few months, he knew what Palmiotti had been through, and what he’d sacrificed to keep their secret safe. With the fake funeral, Palmiotti now had a second chance. That’s how he saw it. This was his chance to make it all right.

  That didn’t mean it was easy. The physical recovery took longer than expected; Clementine had shot him straight through the neck. Plus, there was that incident when he asked if he could contact Lydia—his girlfriend—to say a more proper goodbye. But A.J. knew how Palmiotti was when it came to President Wallace. Palmiotti didn’t just love Wallace. He needed him. That was the right word. Need. And the President needed him back.

  “We can definitely use your help. He needs your help,” A.J. said, leaning hard on the word He.

  “And he’ll have it. I can fix it,” Palmiotti promised.

  “That’s what you said a week ago.”

  Palmiotti stopped at that. “So the church—Is it really that bad?”

  “Bad enough that he called me.”

  “He called you?”

  “Look around, Doc,” A.J. said, standing at the southern end of Lafayette Park and turning from the tall marble columns of the White House, back toward the double-tiered bell tower of St. John’s Church. “Do you have any idea what you’ve unleashed?”

  9

  Forget it, Beecher. He’s long gone,” Tot says, slowly making his way down the brick steps to join me outside. Up the block, there’s nothing but passing cars along H Street.

  “You think he’s our killer?”

  Tot shakes his head. “Sneaking back into his own crime scene with cops in the building? Even crazy people aren’t that crazy.”

  “So he’s police?”

  “He’s a fed. Or something worse. Look,” he says, tossing me the two pieces of the microphone pen. “Motion-activated so it doesn’t need a battery. Hairline mic that amplifies through the pen chamber. You don’t buy that at the local spy shop.”

  “Fed money,” a mechanical voice says through Tot’s speakerphone. I didn’t realize his phone was even on, much less that Immaculate Deception was listening in. “Ask Santa. I bet he can tell us where it’s from.”

  Two weeks back, I heard them mention Santa. At first, I
thought Tot was being facetious. But I’m thinking I just found another Culper Ring member: Santa, the guy who brings them the best high-tech toys.

  “Mac,” I call out, “how many Thin Mints will it cost me to have you look up details on my old friend Marshall?”

  “I’ve been looking since you found that John Wilkes Booth peephole. You’re a bigger nerd than I thought, by the way. Nice job, though,” Mac replies. “Marshall’s got no credit cards… no phone records… and he files his tax return through a P.O. box. Guy definitely likes his privacy.”

  “What about his cell phone?” Tot asks.

  “Already tried. He’s using a Trustchip.”

  “What’s a Trustchip?” I ask.

  “Encrypted. Expensive. Usually for big companies or government contractors,” Mac explains. “Whoever he is, he’s not playing around. I can’t see calls or messages in or out.”

  “Can’t you just turn on the phone’s speaker and we’ll listen in?” Tot asks.

  “Checked that too. Headphone in.”

  It was the first trick Mac taught me when they brought me into the Culper Ring: In any smartphone, it’s easy for someone to remotely turn on your speakerphone. But if you want to thwart it, you plug something into the headphone jack since speakers get disabled when headphones are enabled.

  “What about a home address?” I ask.

  “Apartment in Crystal City, Virginia.”

  “Then there we go,” I say. “Next stop: Crystal City.”

  “And that’s your big idea? Just walk up to Marshall and ask him if he’s the murderer?” Tot asks.

  I shake my head. I haven’t seen Marshall in over a decade. I have no idea if he’s working with Clementine, or the President, or even if he’s the one imitating John Wilkes Booth. But right now a man is dead—and since it was my name that was found in Marshall’s pocket, I’m now tied to whatever the hell is really going on here.