Murder in the Oval Library
Page 22
Sophie thought she might want to return to the Executive Mansion soon, but she hadn’t yet been inside the Capitol since coming to Washington, so she agreed to go with Clara and her sister—mainly out of curiosity. But she also was reluctant to return to the President’s House any sooner than necessary, knowing how short-tempered and anxious Mrs. Lincoln and the other ladies would be.
“I’m certain I’ll know several of the men,” Clara told Sophie as they approached the steps to the majestic domed building. Even with its scaffolding around the partially finished dome, the structure was the grandest, most awe-inspiring building Sophie had ever seen—and that was saying quite a lot, for New York City was filled with many opulent, grand buildings. And, thanks to Peter and his family, she’d been inside many of them.
“My goodness, look at this,” said Sally as they were stopped by a sentry who stood in front of a pile of sandbags that rose nearly to Sophie’s shoulders. These blockages had been placed around the perimeter of the building at the base of the stairs, leaving only two small passages.
The guard used his bayonet to block their progress, which would have taken them through a small passageway between the sandbags and up the steps to the arched entrances to the Capitol.
“Excuse me, misses,” he said, standing there in the gray uniform coat of the Sixth Massachusetts, “but you cannot proceed without giving the password.” Although he was polite in tone, the steely expression in his face indicated he was quite serious about blocking their passage.
Of course they didn’t know the password, and the three women stood there for a moment, discussing their next move—within the sentry’s hearing. Despite their obvious distress, he was not inclined to allow them entrance. Clearly, he’d been given very strict orders.
Just as they were about to leave in defeat, someone called from across one of the arched entrances. “Miss Barton? Miss Clara Barton? Is that you? And Mrs. Vassall, too!”
“Mr. Jones! Oh, excuse me, Colonel Jones,” amended Clara with a shy smile as she smoothed her skirt. “One must remember protocol now that you’re officially in the army.”
Indeed, for yesterday, the men of the Sixth Mass had taken their oaths to the United States Army for ninety days.
The colonel grinned and bowed in acknowledgment. “Miss Barton, I’d heard you were visiting our men at the hospital. And you’ve been bringing blankets and stockings and more to them.” The colonel turned to the sentry, who’d gone to stand at attention at his officer’s approach. He saluted his man, then said, “At ease, Triplett. These young ladies may pass in with me, for Miss Barton and her sister have been keepin’ our boys comfortable in the hospital. What brings you here, Miss Barton?”
Clara quickly introduced Sophie, and the three of them walked up the broad expanse of steps and into the vast, colonnaded portico in his company. Sophie couldn’t keep from gawking at the high arches and the frescoed ceilings as their footsteps echoed across the marble floor.
This, she thought with a swell of pride and hope, was what the war was truly about: maintaining the solvency of the Union, governed here within these massive walls and inside the two new lavish wings for the chambers of Congress. This building represents our country, our government, and what the Founding Fathers built. What our ancestors fought England for.
To her shock, tears stung her eyes as Sophie trailed along behind Colonel Jones, whom she’d learned was the commander of the Sixth Massachusetts.
We can’t let our country fall, she thought. We must keep it together.
“We had to remove the portrait of President Tyler that was hanging in the corridor,” the colonel was saying as he saluted a sentry guarding one of the doors. “Or I wager it would have been shredded with the tip of a bayonet.”
“I can sympathize with their disgust,” Miss Barton replied with heartfelt emotion. “After all, he acted no less than a traitor when he presided over the secession convention in Virginia last week. Imagine, a president of the nation assisting a state to secede!”
“Mr. Buchanan’s painting is put away as well, for the same reason,” Jones said. “Because he did nothing to prepare the Union for the inevitable after Mr. Lincoln was elected.”
Now as they made their way down the marble-floored corridor, Sophie heard the sounds of men marching in drills, their boots ringing in echoes somewhere in the building. There were voices and the clicks of ramrods loading from other parts of the wing. But most of all, heaven help her, she noticed the stench.
Obviously, although there was plenty of room for a thousand men to barrack here, there had not been any attention given to the problem of sanitation for so many.
The rank smell was incredible.
And she didn’t even dare to guess what was in those buckets and troughs lined up along the hallway . . . but from the look and odor, she suspected it was the obvious.
They passed boxed-up marble statues standing next to their pedestals, and rough planking that had been nailed over life-sized paintings and portraits—all in an effort to protect the contents of the building should the worst occur.
As Colonel Jones opened the door to what Sophie realized was the Senate chamber, there was a sudden spurt of loud cheering and shouting from inside.
“What is going on in here?” Jones demanded as a group of men fell back from where they’d been gathered around one of the large desks that lined the room in a semicircle.
Still relatively new to military protocol—for they’d been mustered from a militia back in Massachusetts—the men were slow to stand at attention at the arrival of their commander, and rather sloppy as they did so.
“Leavy, what is going on in here?” Jones asked again as Sophie and the Barton sisters followed him into the chamber.
“Sir,” said the man, standing at attention. “We were cutting that damned traitor’s desk to pieces!”
Sophie could see that was the case: several bayonets had been thrust into one of the desks, and the red leather chair had been cut open.
“That’s Senator Jeff Davis’s desk,” murmured Clara, who was close enough to see. “Er—former desk.”
“Mr. Davis doesn’t own the desk,” replied Jones tersely. “The government that you are protecting does. You are meant to protect the property here, men—not to destroy it!”
Sophie stepped aside as Jones moved forward to finish admonishing his troops. She looked around the elegant, high-ceilinged Senate chamber, relieved that the smell of human waste had been replaced, at least in this room, by that of food. When she looked closer, she saw the grease stains on the leather chairs and the marble floor. There were scattered everywhere trays and plates with ham bones and bacon leftovers, along with stewed potatoes and gravy slopped on the walls, furnishings, and floor. Tobacco stains colored the walls and floor, where the juice had missed the spittoon—or hadn’t even attempted to find the vessel.
She’d peeked in to the East Room at the White House, currently bed and board to over a hundred men, and the mess the Frontier Guard made there wasn’t nearly as severe as that here in the Senate Chamber. Still, the ill caretaking of the chamber, as with the half-finished Washington Monument, was yet another symbol of the destruction and threat to the American democracy.
Suddenly, she was tired and anxious. It was time to leave. If she went soon, she’d make it back to the Executive Mansion before the sun set.
Sophie bid farewell to Clara and Sally, and as she was escorted out from the Senate Chamber (for she never would have found the way herself), she toyed with the idea of just returning to her own home at the Castle. If she kept the lights off, no one would know she was there and thus she’d be in no danger.
The idea was very attractive—especially since she’d hardly given a thought to writing a newspaper story since meeting Clara Barton and joining her in the efforts to provide for the soldiers. Between the murder investigation and working with her new friend, Sophie hadn’t even picked up a pencil or paper except for the notes she’d made for Mr. Quinn.
Outside once again, where the air was fresh and didn’t stink like an outhouse or a banquet room, Sophie paused at the top of the hill. She looked left, down toward the red-orange brick of the Castle—which was in closer proximity—and then to the right, along the broad Pennsylvania Avenue to where the president and his family were. The sun was preparing to set directly in front of her, tinting the sky pink and red like a watercolor wash.
She counted five flickers of campfires across the Potomac and shivered. They were there. Waiting. Waiting to come across the Long Bridge and seize the city.
If she walked home—back to the Castle—she’d be there before darkness set in. Sophie was tempted. Very tempted. She could send word to Mr. Quinn, somehow. Maybe one of the men here would take the message. So at least he wouldn’t worry about her.
Sophie flushed at the thought. Clara had made some comment earlier today about “your Mr. Quinn”—it was after Mrs. Lander had left their shooting practice and they were discussing the conversation about her driver Louis.
“He’s not my Mr. Quinn,” Sophie had replied tartly. “If he’s anyone’s Mr. Quinn, he’s Constance Lemagne’s.”
And that was fine with her—as long as he didn’t try to keep Sophie out of the murder investigation while allowing the pretty, simpering Southern belle in—such as to draw pictures and visit the makeshift morgue.
But Clara’s comment had lodged in her mind, and it stuck there as Sophie began to make her way down toward—sigh—Pennsylvania Avenue. The idea of being courted by a man, or even having a man being interested in courting her—not that she believed Mr. Quinn had the least bit of consideration toward doing so—made her stomach feel tight beneath her stays and her mouth dry. Almost as much as when she sat there politely listening to Mrs. Lincoln and her relatives wail on about the impending invasion.
After what had happened with Peter, Sophie didn’t think she ever wanted to get married, let alone have a courtship with a man. Even with a man as radically different from Peter Schuyler as Adam Quinn.
Maybe she would be like Clara Barton—unmarried at the age of forty, and happy about it.
* * *
George whistled softly as he approached the dark house. It was past ten o’clock, and the moonless night was still. The city was more than four miles behind him, so there was nothing here but all shades of gray and black shadows.
And, he hoped, nothing else.
A maple just beginning to burst into leaves buffeted gently against the overhang of the roof, making soft, skittery, scraping noises. The faint scent of wood smoke hung in the air, telling him someone had burned a fire recently.
But other than that, the house that was tucked into a pair of small, gentle hills appeared abandoned. Even the scent of horse dung was absent.
He whistled again, low and smooth, so that it melded with the breeze and the softly clattering branches in a gentle announcement of his arrival.
He’d not been to this house before, but Brownie Bixley had given him the directions. Brownie had meant to come tonight, but George told him to stay home with his wife and boys. If the Confederates came, he’d need to be there to get his family to hiding. And to help protect the city.
George knew Beauregard was in Alexandria, and that he was amassing men with amazing speed compared to Mr. Lincoln’s mustering his army—thanks in great part to the state of Maryland’s disagreeability in allowing any of the Northerners through. That was the thing about the network of communication among the Negroes: there was little information to be hidden when slaves and servants lurked everywhere and no one paid any mind to them. So they heard everything, they spoke to each other in their own coded ways, both free and slave, and therefore George had learned the city was still at great risk. Beauregard needed to attack before reinforcements arrived from New York and Massachusetts, and that meant he had to act soon.
That was why George had risked coming here tonight. And why he was particularly thankful even the stars were swathed in the darkness of clouds.
He edged into the shadows by the maple and waited, listening and watching, pressing himself up against its trunk. He felt the roughness against his temple and the palm of his hand, and he smelled the fresh, loamy scent of damp bark.
The ride beyond the city in his trundling wagon had seemed even longer and darker than his usual journeys because he knew Confederate soldiers lurked all throughout the hills surrounding Washington. They spied and waited and watched, and because of that, he was putting himself at risk more than he’d ever done. Even here in the middle of nowhere, in the dark of night, someone could be watching and waiting around any bend in the road or beyond any stand of trees.
Spies, scouts, traitors, slavers, soldiers.
Escapees.
He’d left the wagon and its cargo parked in a throng of thick pines and tall brush some ways back. Then he unhooked his mare, leading her along with him for another half-mile. He tied her up—Blaze was her name—and left her tucked in a different stand of trees and brush with a nosebag of oats and prayers that no one would hear or see her. George not only couldn’t afford to lose her, he didn’t want to lose her. She was a smart and gentle mare.
Then he’d walked the last quarter of a mile to this meeting place. If someone heard the whuffling of his horse, he’d be too far away for them to instantly connect him to Blaze, and the horseless cart, almost a mile away—if it were noticed, hidden as it was—would appear abandoned.
By now George estimated it had been at least ten minutes since his last whistle. There’d been no sign nor sound from inside the house—although shack was a more appropriate term. It looked as if it might blow over in a strong wind.
With one last look around to be certain he was alone, he slipped from the relative safety of the tree and melded into the shadow of the shack. Around he went to the back, careful to avoid tripping on or knocking into debris from the decrepit building. As he moved toward the center of the back wall, where the door was, he heard a faint whistle coming from inside.
The sound was hardly discernible, but it was enough to have his muscles relax a bit in relief. He was a free man, born a free man thanks to his mother’s determination and cunning, but the awareness that that could change in the breath of a moment always lived with him.
He whistled once more, putting his mouth next to the place where the door appeared to be, so he could keep the sound as quiet as possible.
Something creaked on the other side of the rough wooden slats that made up the wall, and then it slid away. The angular shape of the opening was pale yellow, and, heart pounding, George stepped inside.
CHAPTER 13
BIRCH REMOVED HIS GLOVES—PRISTINE AND WHITE AS ALWAYS, LIKE now, even at the end of his shift—and folded them neatly. Though his hands were old and gnarled, dark as walnuts, a little crusty at the knuckles, they still worked just fine.
Sure, he might have some days it was harder to get up before the dawn and dress and come down the Avenue to the hotel to get shaved before his shift—with more aches and pains than he had only a few years ago when President Pierce was here—but he still mostly worked just fine.
And if it weren’t for him, the Willard—that blessed, beautiful place that give him so much happiness over the years since he was freed—well, that stately ol’ hotel would be burned to the ground. Woulda gone up in flames last Thursday night if ol’ Birch, he hadn’t seen it all going on.
Damned Secessionists.
Ol’ Birch—yessir, he nodded to himself—he’s a man who saw ever’thing. He noticed ever’one, and nothin’ went on around the Avenue he didn’t know about.
And he remembered it all, too. Al
l o’ it.
He might be almost seventy, but ol’ Birch, he got eyes like a hawk. An’ his ears work just fine too. And bein’ at the front door of the Willard Hotel—don’t care what no one else tried to argue, it was the fanciest, most import’nt meeting place or eating place or business place or politicking place in all o’ Washington, even more than the Capitol or the pres’dent’s house—and Birch, he bein’ at the front door of the Willard ever’day meant he saw and heard all of it.
Ain’t never a face or a person or a carriage passed by that front door he didn’t see or notice. No, sir.
Birch tucked the folded gloves into a pocket of his dark coat with the big silver buttons, the uniform he wore every day to manage the comings and goings at the Willard, and smoothed down the front of it. Though his shift might be ended—and late, it was, tonight that he was finally making to leave—a man hadda take pride in his appearance, black or white or red or yellow, and Birch, he did make sure of that. Even when he was off-duty. They din’t pay him much at the Willard, but that Lizzie Keckley, she help keep him in style just as she kept Mrs. Lincoln in her fancy dresses. He smiled and shook his head. Imagine that—him bein’ dressed by the same seamstress doing the president’s wife!
If he were twenty, thirty years younger . . . well, he might be considerin’ courtin’ on Miz Lizzie. She sure had a good way with a needle and thread, and she was as kind a soul as they come.
Though servants were relegated to using the back entrance of the hotel, Birch—well, he was the exception. How could they keep him from goin’ in and out the front door when that was what he did all day?
He chuckled to himself at the thought as he walked from the back near the kitchens up through the lobby of his beloved Willard. He adjusted a large pot of ferns in the hall because its fronds threatened to block the entrance to the ladies’ eating room—though it was nearly empty now with everyone gone out of the town, sad as it was—and paused to straighten one of the spittoons near the hotel’s entrance. He tsked at the sight of tobacco juice sliding down the side of it and hollered for one of the boys to come clean it up. Couldn’t have a dripping spittoon be the first thing a man saw when he come in the door to the Willard, now, could he?