Murder at the Capitol

by C. M. Gleason

  “Do you mean enemies?” Mr. Floke’s eyes widened. “Are you suggesting someone did that to Piney? Why, there’s a note pinned to his coat! It even says he did it!” When Adam didn’t answer, after a moment, the other man drew his gaze from the dead man’s body on the floor and spoke. “I can’t think of anyone he didn’t get along with. Piney was the sort of man who came to work, did his job, and then went home to his wife. He didn’t drink or carouse, but he was the sort of man who was always open to take a chance on a new scheme or investment.”

  “Was he indebted to someone he might have invested in? Or borrowed from to invest? Or did he gamble?”

  “I don’t know of anyone Piney would have owed money to, Mr. Quinn. And he wasn’t a gambler in that way.... Look, Mr. Quinn, working in the Patent Office, you get to see a lot of ideas and inventions come through. Some of them are nothing but fool’s errands or junk, but some of the ideas—well, you could tell what had a chance of making a man some money. And Piney was the type of man who noticed things like that, and he’d say, ‘If I had the money, I’d invest in this invention right here,’ or ‘This is a very useful tool that should be manufactured.’ But as far as I know, he never followed through on something like that.”

  Adam nodded. That was interesting insight into the dead man and he appreciated Mr. Floke’s candidness. “Where do he and his wife live?”

  He made a note of Tufts’s address as well as Floke’s, then turned his attention at last to the body.

  Someone had covered his face with a coat, and Adam lifted it as he settled in a crouch next to the body. Pinebar Tufts was in his forties, and the recent trimming of his beard and mustache, along with the cut of his clothing, suggested he lived a life of average comfort. Now he was close enough to easily be able to read the paper pinned to his coat. For my sins, it said.

  Adam sighed and offered up another prayer for the poor man. Then he unpinned the note and tucked it into his own pocket and resumed the examination.

  Having cut down more than one hanging victim in his life, Adam was accustomed to seeing the ugly way rope dug into the flesh of a man’s neck and the horrible purplish coloring of his face—although Tufts’s face wasn’t purple or red, but was pale and gray, which he found interesting. And despite the fact that he’d seen hanged men before, that didn’t make it pleasant for Adam to carefully examine the flesh at the collar of his shirt. A neckcloth sagged loosely from the opening, dangling over Tufts’s waistcoat. Adam lifted the man’s gloved hands to look for anything that might have adhered to his fingers, but they were clean.

  Just then, a disturbance across the room caught his attention. “You cannot enter here,” someone said angrily.

  “I was sent for, sir.” George Hilton’s quiet words nonetheless reached Adam’s ears.

  Adam rose quickly and turned. “Dr. Hilton,” he said in a voice that carried authority, “thank you for coming so quickly. Will you take a look at this?”

  George met his eyes, giving him a brief nod of acknowledgment as he removed his hat and strode across the marble floor. He was only two years older than Adam, not nearly as tall, but strong and quick and very intelligent. His black hair was cut short to the scalp, and his mustache, sideburns, and beard were also trimmed closely. George Hilton was an excellent physician who’d been trained in Toronto and was someone Adam had come to think of as a friend during his short time in Washington.

  However, since George was a black man, the very act of him assisting Adam with his murder investigations by performing autopsies on people—especially white people—was an incredibly risky proposition. Yet the man didn’t hesitate to help, and it had been because of his careful examinations that Adam had been able to put the pieces together and catch two murderers.

  Adam joined him, pitching his voice into a low murmur so that only George would hear. “Maybe it’s best if you take him back to your office.” When the doctor nodded, Adam looked over at the two soldiers. “Mr. Tufts’s body needs to be transported to Dr. Hilton’s place. Can you find something to wrap him in?”

  That would give George a few minutes to look over the body, and then he could do the rest of his unpleasant work in the privacy of his cellar office.

  “Can you tell how long ago he died?” Adam asked as he crouched once more. He knew the answer had something to do with how stiff the body was—or wasn’t, or had been, or something along those lines.

  “Between four and seven hours is my best estimate. Cause of death appears obvious,” he added, but his eyes held curiosity when he looked up from his examination.

  “It nearly always does. But there’s usually something more for you to find.” Adam gave a wry smile.

  His eyes crinkling a bit at the corners, George rose to his feet and replaced the hat he’d been holding. “I’ll send word when I have news.”

  “Thank you. Have you seen much of young Brian?” Adam felt a flicker of guilt that he hadn’t spoken to the poor Irish boy for weeks.

  “Oh yes.” The crinkling at George’s eyes grew more pronounced. “Nearly every day I can find something for him to do. He and his hen. The boy’s a true scamp.” He shook his head, but his lips twitched and affection danced in his eyes.

  “I reckon Mrs. Mulcahey is appreciative,” Adam said. And he knew it was a financial cost for George as well—for more often than not, Brian’s small wages included “leftover” food that would help to feed his mother and younger siblings. “Send word with him and I’ll make sure he returns with candles and kerosene for you.” When George made as if to protest, he said, “The president will insist on paying for supplies.”

  “Very well.”

  By now the soldier had returned with a large canvas, and George assisted him with wrapping the body.

  When they finally carried the corpse away, Adam turned his attention to Miss Lemagne and Miss Gates. “How did the two of you come to be here this morning?”

  “Why, I was coming to listen in the Senate gallery with my dear friend Mrs. Greenhow,” replied Miss Lemagne. She’d tucked the sketchbook under her arm but was still holding her pencil. “And when I saw Sophie—er, Miss Gates—I walked in with her. And then we saw it. Him, I mean. Just hanging there. We knew right away we should send for you, Mr. Quinn.” Her dimples flashed briefly, but her voice was sober. “Is it another murder?” she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Yes,” Miss Gates interjected firmly, but Miss Lemagne didn’t even look at her. She’d rested her hand on Adam’s forearm—his real one—and looked up at him, her eyes genuinely troubled.

  “Why do you think he was murdered?” Adam asked Miss Gates, ignoring the warmth of Miss Lemagne’s hand seeping through his coat. “He’s wearing a note that says otherwise.”

  “He’s still wearing his gloves,” she replied.

  “His gloves.”

  Adam turned that over in his mind as she explained. “I just don’t see someone tossing a rope over a beam, tying a hangman’s noose, then putting it over his neck and jumping—all while wearing his gloves. And where is his hat?” She looked around. “He’s wearing a coat and gloves, but no hat? There wasn’t one up on the crane, was there?”

  “Sophie’s right. I agree with her—it has to be murder,” Miss Lemagne said suddenly. “One certainly couldn’t tie a knot very well wearing gloves. And we should look for his hat. It must be around here—”

  “And if it isn’t, that means someone either took it or brought him here without it,” said the other woman in a voice that was a little louder than necessary.

  “I reckon you could be right,” Adam replied, suddenly desperate to get away from the two pretty, charming, and exasperating young ladies. He wasn’t certain he agreed with their assessment, for he could think of several reasons a man might not have his hat or not remove his gloves—but the pattern of footprints on the beam of the derrick made him wonder. No, he wouldn’t dismiss the possibility that Piney Tufts didn’t hang himself.

  “I’ll go look for th
e hat,” Miss Gates said. She went off in a swirl of dove gray skirts, the pink ribbons from the bonnet she carried fluttering behind her.

  “Miss Lemagne, if you wish, I can have Private Strongley escort you back to the St. Charles,” Adam told her, referring to the hotel where she and her father had been living.

  “Why, Mr. Quinn, you know Daddy and I aren’t at the St. Charles anymore. Surely you remember that we moved in with Althea Billings—you saw us packing up the wagon back in April.”

  “Oh yes, I reckon I do recall that—”

  “Why, if I were a sensitive sort of woman, I might be a trifle put off by the fact that you’ve so easily forgotten—and that it’s been that long since I’ve seen you,” she added, her southern drawl thickening as she drew out the syllables. Long lashes framed her cornflower blue eyes as she looked up at him. “Surely you haven’t been avoiding me.”

  Adam resisted the urge to shift from one foot to the other. “Oh no, Miss Lemagne, I’ve just been—”

  “But I’m sure you’ve been very busy, helping Mr. Lincoln,” she said a little breathlessly. “And all of these soldiers in town—why, it’s been so loud and crowded. Isn’t General McDowell going to send them off soon? I declare, it’s so one can’t even walk down Penn Avenue without tripping over one of them Unionists.” Her voice had gone a little hard at the end, and then she recovered. “Forgive me, Mr. Quinn. Here I am, prattling on when you’ve got work to do.” She removed the sketchbook from under her arm and showed it to him. “I thought I might do some drawings of the scene, just as I did the last time. I’ve nearly got the first one done.”

  She demonstrated, opening the book to a page that showed Piney Tufts hanging from the wooden derrick. Adam managed to swallow his horrified exclamation, instead keeping his voice calm as he grasped the only straw available to him. “Miss Lemagne, I reckon I appreciate your offer for help, but—but what would your father say?”

  He couldn’t deny she was a talented illustrator, and the image was shocking in its accuracy and detail. But he simply couldn’t condone a young woman being involved in such an inappropriate task. It was bad enough that she’d been here when the body was discovered.

  “Oh, Daddy is far too occupied with Mrs. Billings,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “They’re going to be married, you know, once her year of mourning is over.”

  Adam hadn’t known, but he wasn’t surprised. Miss Lemagne’s father had been a suspect in the death of Althea Billings’s husband back in March, and apparently the two had known and loved each other years ago down in Alabama. “Miss Lemagne,” he tried again, “your drawing of the—uh—last murder victim was very helpful, but I don’t know that in this case it’ll be—”

  “I found it!”

  Adam turned to see Miss Gates fairly running across the marble floor, ribbons streaming behind her, bonnet in one hand and a man’s bowler hat in the other.

  “It was down the hallway over there.” She was hardly panting from her run as she thrust the bowler at Adam. “And look—there’s blood on the inside of it!”

  He examined the brown wool hat and saw that not only was there blood on the inside, but the outside was dented. The story seemed obvious: someone had hit whoever had been wearing the hat hard enough to crush the hat and break the skin. However, just as obvious was that the hat didn’t necessarily belong to Pinebar Tufts. Adam hadn’t seen any blood or wounds on the man; though, to be fair, he hadn’t examined the back of his head. “Thank you, Miss Gates.”

  “I told you. It’s murder,” she said. Her eyes gleamed with relish. “Now, if you’d like my assistance with the interviews, as before, I can spare some time this morning before I’m due to report to the E Street Infirmary at half two. Miss Barton and I are meeting up to ask for donations from the people who live on Seventeenth Street.”

  Adam stifled a sigh. What had he ever done that sentenced him to have two lovely but stubborn and provoking women determined to interfere in his murder investigations? Somehow they’d each decided they were invaluable members of his team, and he could see no way to extricate either of them from such an unseemly situation.

  He managed to nod. “That’s very kind of you, Miss Gates. I reckon I don’t know enough about the situation to know who needs to be interviewed just yet.”

  “Very well, then, Mr. Quinn,” she said in a suspiciously acquiescent tone. “I suppose I’ll be on my way to listen to the Senate for a while. I believe they’re going to be debating what to do about the senators who’ve joined the secessionists but haven’t formally withdrawn from the Senate. Whether to expel them or not. Constance, we had best go and find a seat for your Mrs. Greenhow before the gallery is filled.”

  Adam was relieved and surprised—and, he had to admit, mistrustful—when both young ladies went off without further comment. But he couldn’t concern himself with them any longer.

  He had to do right for Piney Tufts, and his next order of business was to bring the sad news to Mrs. Tufts.

  * * *

  If he hadn’t been set on such a difficult task, Adam would have enjoyed his walk from the Capitol northwest toward the neighborhood where Pinebar Tufts had lived. He followed Seventh Street north, passing the Patent Office, and noticed the motley array of buildings that acted as homes for Washington families. There were mansions next to boardinghouses, and redbrick row houses adjacent to wooden structures hardly larger than shacks, along with more spacious single-family homes made from brick as well. Empty lots hosted chickens, goats, and cows, and the sidewalks were narrow and rough. Black iron fences enclosed the narrow front yards of some of the houses, doing their part to keep random grazing animals out—or in, depending on the situation.

  The beautiful weather from yesterday had continued, so the sky was blue and cloudless and the sun full and pleasantly warm without making the air sticky. Someone nearby was baking bread, and someone else had emptied a chamber pot behind their house, and the competing smells mingled with woodsmoke and blooming summer flowers. A huckster’s cart rattled past, and Adam had to wait for a wagon overloaded with lumber before he could cross the street.

  The dirt-packed street was soft but not messy. Every time it rained for more than a few hours, the swamp on which Washington City was built swelled, crept, and oozed up to create muddy, mucky streets and walkways. Adam watched a pig dart out of the path from an oncoming wagon filled with barrels, barely missing being someone’s dinner, and he noticed a trio of goats grazing on a small patch of grass as he passed by the market on K Street. These were common sights in the capital city, and ones that still caused him bemusement when he saw chickens picking their way down a sidewalk.

  Although the Independence Day celebrations were over, an air of patriotism remained in the red, white, and blue buntings and ribbons that fluttered from windows, and the many Stars and Stripes hanging from mailboxes, hitching posts, and windows. Despite the fact that Washington had always been a “southern” town—which accounted for the number of people who still wore the secessionist cockade ribbons and openly spoke of support for their rebellious brethren—an overwhelming sense of patriotism to the Union had overtaken the city with the arrival of tens of thousands of soldiers.

  Adam had seen firsthand the wild chaos of the troops during the last two months: the drinking, brawling, whoring, and general raucousness had changed a quiet, genteel town into one that seemingly belonged in the Wild West. The troops, which had been whipped up into a patriotic frenzy in the North, had arrived in this small town and immediately discovered they had nothing to do but create havoc. It was an ongoing problem and a source of conflict between the city and the government’s military. Once a month, the troops were paid, and things got even worse during the few days after. And with only twenty-five constables in the entire city, it was nearly impossible for them to keep the peace.

  The address Adam had been given brought him to a small but neatly kept block of rowhouses on M Street. Made from the common pressed red brick as were most of the othe
r homes that belonged to the working class, the line of four connected houses offered residences that were narrow on the street side. Two windows flanked each front door, and a second floor boasted two more windows above. One of them had a tiny black iron fence around its skinny front yard. He drew in a deep breath as he turned onto the abbreviated walk that led to the entrance and prepared to give Mrs. Tufts the sad news.

  He removed his hat and, tucking it under his arm along with the bowler that Miss Gates had found, checked the time on his pocket watch. Half eight. Surely Mrs. Tufts would be dressed and about her chores by now. He rapped firmly with his false hand—there was no knocker—and waited.

  After what seemed like forever, the door cracked open. “Yes?” The voice was female, but he couldn’t see much of her. He did note a strong southern accent. “Who is it?”

  “Ma’am, my name is Adam Quinn, and I’m here to speak with Mrs. Tufts.” He hesitated to offer the card signed by Mr. Lincoln; it was just as likely to be torn up as it was to be revered, and he didn’t see any reason to take the chance yet. The president had already replaced the card once.

  “What do you want?” The door wavered a little, but the size of the crack didn’t change. “I ain’t letting strangers in my house.”

  “Are you Mrs. Tufts? Mrs. Pinebar Tufts? I need to speak to you about your husband, ma’am. You don’t have to let me in if you don’t want to.”

  “It’s about Piney? What about him?” There was a tinge of fear in her voice now, and the door opened just far enough to reveal the woman he reckoned was Marybelle Tufts. She was in her late thirties and wore a clean apron over her dumpling-like figure. Her round cheeks were red from emotion, heat, or familial heritage, and her eyes were wary as they tracked to him. “Is he all right?”

  Adam shifted the hat to his hand for something to do. “Ma’am, I’m very sorry to have to bring you this news, but your husband, Pinebar Tufts, is dead.”

  “Dead?” She emitted the single syllable, then simply stared at him, gaping.