But if someone was around to see him now . . .
He drew back on the reins and waited for Blaze to still. He tried to slow his pulse to normal as he listened, attuned to the light shift of the breeze. The smells of smoke and sewage buffeted upon the air, and the night was silent. He heard nothing.
Damn it.
George despised the fact that he had to control this fear every time he moved about at night.
No, this apprehension was with him whenever he encountered a white man—especially a group of white men—day or night. Whenever he entered an establishment owned by a white man that he didn’t know, or walked in a deserted area, or even attempted to treat the illness of a white person.
It wasn’t so much the underlying (and sometimes blatant) disregard most whites had for blacks—the belief that George and his dark-skinned, African-born people were less intelligent, capable, sensible, and human than they were.
It was the fear that anyone at any time could take him, and he’d be abducted and sold off into slavery. For any reason, and he would have little or no legal recourse.
This was a constant, though subtle, worry, and one he felt mortified over having to battle every time he interacted with a white person with whom he was unfamiliar. And it made him feel weak and like less of a man.
He climbed down from the wagon and quietly led Blaze to the post near the side of the church where he could tie her up.
What would it be like to go anywhere and do anything without that fear?
It hadn’t been like that in Toronto, where he’d studied medicine. But here, he—
George stilled. The door of his office was slightly ajar. His heart surged into his throat and he froze. He heard movement inside: someone was in there, digging through his belongings.
Or looking for something.
A cold sweat sprang free all over him, sending a trickle down his spine. Giving Blaze a pat on her soft nose as much to comfort her as himself, he moved to withdraw his rifle from its hiding place on the seat.
With that heavy, illicit comfort in his hand, George moved quietly to the steps that led down to the door, listening carefully.
There were no voices, but there were more sounds of clinking and movement from within. Gripping the gun, George nonetheless kept it close to his side, out of sight. He’d prefer not to use it, and prefer even more not to be seen with it—but not enough to leave it behind and himself unarmed.
At the bottom of the steps, he eased open the door with his foot. His breathing seemed far too loud in his ears, his heart thudded in his ears as more cold sweat made him feel clammy and ill. The scents of tobacco smoke and whiskey reached his nostrils, fighting to be noticed over the smell of Jane Thorne’s warming body.
As George stepped into the doorway, the figure inside turned sharply.
“Where the hell have you been?” it demanded.
CHAPTER 14
“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?” GEORGE HILTON REPLIED. “I sent word to you more than three days ago, Quinn.”
Adam grimaced, peering at him in the dim light thrown by a single candle. “I’m sorry. We can talk about that later. Right now, I reckon I—or he—needs your help more’n you need my explanation. I think he’s going to die.”
“Who is?” Hilton rested the rifle—which he wasn’t supposed to have—against the wall and hurried over to the examining table behind the curtain. The arrested expression he’d been wearing was gone, replaced by one of calm efficiency, and his shoulders had lowered and widened.
“It’s Birch. The doorman at the Willard.” Adam had only lit the one candle, and that was so he could get inside and settle his burden without falling on his face and hurting the man any more than he already was. Then he’d turned to trying to stanch the blood pouring from the back of Birch’s head, and cursing the doctor for not being there when he damned well needed him—discounting the fact that it was after midnight, and the man had a bed in a rooming house elsewhere.
George swore under his breath, but he’d snatched up the candle and was already examining the bloody, inert form of the wiry old man that Adam—one-armed and half-drunk—had managed to bring here. “What happened?”
“Got hit from behind. I didn’t see it, but I was leaving the Willard with some of the men barracking at the White House—we had a few whiskeys—”
“You don’t say,” Hilton replied dryly as he used his finger to peel open one of Birch’s eyes, then shined the candle on it. “I could smell you the minute I walked in here. Quit breathing it on me and get some damned lamps lit. Don’t look to me like he’s gonna die.”
Adam huffed a relieved laugh and sprang into action. As he found lamps and set them up nearby, he frowned. “Speaking of smells . . . what on earth you got rotting back there?”
Hilton paused in his ministrations and fastened a gimlet eye on him. “Among other things, Jane Thorne’s body. The ice keeps melting and I didn’t know what you wanted me to do with it because you haven’t been here.”
“Right.” Adam grimaced again. “I’ve been trying to keep the damned Confederates from coming in and tearing up the city.”
“By drinking whiskey?” Again, the doctor’s voice was dry as dust. “That’s one tactic I’ve not heard of.”
Adam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “We were celebrating—a few of the Frontier Guard men and I took a Confederate flag right from the middle of the town square in Falls Church.”
He almost smiled as he remembered the exhilaration of galloping into a crowd of Confederate men and scattering them like buckshot. Stockton grabbed the flag, and with a few whoops and rifle shots into the air, Adam and his companions wheeled their horses around and barreled off. That was the first time he’d felt free and filled with such energy since he’d come to Washington.
It was the first time in over a week he’d felt any hope to speak of.
Unfortunately, now that the effects of the whiskey were wearing off, that sliver of hope was disintegrating.
“We brought the flag back to the Willard, and Lane hung it from his window—then he bought us a few rounds.” And Adam had joined his colleagues at the bar counter, all the while feeling disloyal because of his suspicions over Jim Lane.
It was due to concern over his friend’s possible guilt that, over the last few days, he’d allowed himself to think less about the murder investigation. He justified the inattention because Lincoln and Major Hunter needed all of his head-power focused on keeping the city and White House safe, but Adam knew it was really because he didn’t know what he would do if it turned out his friend had killed Pamela Thorne—or how to prove it if he had.
“Well, now why didn’t you say so? A shot-up, tattered Confederate flag hanging from the window at the Willard is definitely goin’ keep Beauregard from invading the city and tearing it up,” Hilton said.
Once again, Adam stifled a laugh. “Things’ve been damned tense and anxious up at the White House, and two whiskeys—well, I reckon it was three—took a little bit of the edge off. By the way, I found out her real name—it’s Pamela Thorne. I’ll explain after I tell you about Birch.
“I was leaving the hotel and saw him in front of me, and I reckoned I’d catch up to him and say hello. He was the one who realized what was going on that night the Secessionists tried to burn down the hotel. Birch was walking along, then turned a corner, and when I finally did too, I was just in time to see someone attack him. Jumped him from behind, then smashed a heavy stick over the back of his head. The bastard took off running when he saw me. I went after him, but he was too far away and it was too dark to see which direction he went.
“Then I went back to see to Birch. All that blood—at first, I thought he was already dead. He’s an old man, you know. You sure he’s not going to die?”
“He might if you don’t get me some more lanterns lit,” Hilton said mildly.
Adam looked at the three he’d done so far. “Well how damned many do you need?”
“More’n that i
f I’m going to stitch him up. That’s a nasty laceration there on the back of the head. Those kind bleed a lot, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to die. His pulse is nice and strong and he’s moved a few times now too. I expect he’ll come to soon. And you’ll need some light too, I’m guessing, so you can look over some of Jane—I mean Pamela Thorne’s things while you’re at it. I can’t keep her here much longer.”
Adam couldn’t disagree, but he felt a little disconcerted about deciding what exactly to do with the poor woman’s body—and whether to bother Lincoln about it during such a crisis. He supposed he could ask Lane, as it was because of him she was there at the White House anyhow, but that didn’t set well with him either.
Not until he knew whether Lane had murdered her. And the uncomfortable truth was, he did know what he would do if it turned out Lane was guilty. He just didn’t want to have to.
The thing that he just didn’t know was the answer to why—and that was a fact in Lane’s favor. Adam couldn’t think of a reason the man would kill his mistress—especially after bringing her into the president’s residence with him. Unless . . . Adam frowned. What if Pamela Thorne was in the family way? And she’d told Jim about it, and he didn’t want news to get back to his wife Mary.
“Brian said you had information for me,” he said to the doctor as he set a fourth lamp on the table next to Birch’s head.
Now that Hilton had cleaned away the blood, Adam could see how the gash had split the skin at the back of the old man’s skull. Still looked lethal to him, but Hilton was actually whistling a little under his breath as he threaded a needle, so he reckoned the doctor wasn’t worried.
“That’s right,” said Hilton, pausing in the middle of a tune about “deep down in my heart.” He looked up. “I finished looking her over. I didn’t see anything that made it look like she was interfered with unwillingly.”
Adam nodded grimly to himself; he already expected from his talking with Lane that Pamela Thorne was a willing partner. His apprehension grew, for if Hilton revealed something that would convict Lane—at least in Adam’s mind—that would be very unpleasant.
So he decided to put the question out there right away. “Was there any chance she was in the family way?”
Hilton glanced at him as he finished knotting the thread. “She wasn’t. And how did you find out her name? Do you know anything else about her?”
Adam hesitated. But, dammit, Hilton trusted him—and had helped him out many times in the last month. And he reckoned it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have someone he could talk things over with besides Miss Gates.
“She was Jim Lane’s mistress. I don’t know anything else about her—where she’s from, who her family is. I got him to admit they were together, and that they’d had a rendezvous in the oval library that night she was killed at two o’clock.” He gave the other man a wry smile. “Your estimate on the time of death was pretty close, because it had to have happened after two and, I’d wager, before four.”
“If Lane was telling you the truth about her still being alive when they were finished—or when he left her.”
Trust Hilton to speak so pragmatically.
“Yes. I do believe him—well, about that at least. But there’s a snarl in his story that’s been bothering me. We found his coat. The killer was wearing it when he cut her throat.”
The doctor was no longer whistling, and although he was paying attention to his needle and the precise stitches he was making, he nodded. “That ain’t good for Mr. Lane. And the fact he claims he didn’t hear anything from that room when he was sleeping in the hall outside and he’s supposed to be on guard duty? A good sentry wakes at the smallest sound. I’ve been wondering about that since the beginning.”
Adam nodded reluctantly. “Unless he heard something, but just thought it was her leaving the room after their—uh—engagement.” He looked at Hilton. “I reckoned from the blood and some tracks and footprints in the room that the killer hid behind the curtains. It appears he was there for a while.”
“How do you know that? And how do you know the coat was Lane’s? He admit it?”
“After a fashion.” Adam went on to describe how he knew the coat belonged to the Kansas senator because of the burn on the back, and then shared their conversation about it in the library on Monday. Then he explained how he’d determined where the killer hid.
“Didn’t Lane kill a man back in Kansas? Just up and shot him over something silly like a well or some water?” Hilton pulled the needle through, raising his arm as he drew it tight, and Adam fancied he could hear the sound of thread sliding through flesh. Between that, the whiskey he’d had some time ago, and the knowledge that Pamela Thorne’s unpleasant-smelling body was behind the other curtain and beginning to decompose, Adam wasn’t feeling particularly steady.
“Gaius Jenkins was his name. Yes, Jim shot him, but it was self-defense—and the judge on the court case agreed. Jim came here to Washington to argue for the Kansas legislation, and during that time, Jenkins took over Jim’s homestead land. He squatted there and planned to farm it—what Jim had already begun to clear. But the worst part was his daughter’s grave was there—Annie, who was only six when she died. Jenkins actually tilled up the field and the gravesite where Annie was buried.” Adam shook his head and pursed his lips—as if it would protect him from the horrific image of a poor girl’s body being torn up by a plow, and he wholly understood why Jim had been devastated by grief and blindly furious with Jenkins.
“That’s awful,” Hilton murmured.
“Yes. When Jim found out . . . well, the only way to describe it is he went mad. But he didn’t kill him outright. It wasn’t until Jenkins came—he’d been drinking—and brought some friends. He provoked Jim—who I reckon I have to admit can be easily provoked—and one thing led to another. Jim shot him when Jenkins pulled a gun on him.”
“So you don’t believe your friend killed Pamela Thorne.” Hilton’s skepticism should have rankled Adam, but he understood why the doctor felt that way.
Yet, he couldn’t say whether he thought Jim was innocent or not. Too many things pointed to him. “What else did you find out?”
Hilton glanced up at him as he tied off the thread. “Killer had dark hair.”
Damn. “How do you know that?”
“Found some in the top of her hair that didn’t belong to her—probably got there when he was holding her from behind and cutting her throat.”
Adam nodded, already seeing it in his mind. “When she struggled against him, and that part of her head would have hit his chin and probably rubbed against his beard.” Then a thought struck him. “Jim doesn’t wear a beard. He doesn’t shave often enough, but he doesn’t have a beard. So his hair there wouldn’t be very long. How long was the hair?” For the first time, a small bit of hope filtered through him. “And Jim’s too tall for the top of her head to rub against his chin like that.”
Hilton nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a fair point. I’ll show you the hair when I’m finished here. You ever look over her clothes and all? I don’t have room to keep all that stuff here. And it’s not good, me having a white woman all cut up here in my office. You’ve got to get that business out of here.”
Adam nodded. “I reckon you’re right about that. Let’s wrap her up tonight in a sheet, and I’ll send someone for her tomorrow.” He could figure out what to do then, or maybe just send Pamela Thorne to the real morgue, where they kept bodies until someone claimed them—or they decomposed too much and needed to be buried. Which it seemed as if, ice notwithstanding, Mrs. Thorne was at that point.
Birch gave a soft groan as Adam began to lay out Pamela’s clothing and her shoes on a table so he could look them over closely. Hilton brought four lamps over and placed them around to offer the best light.
“So we know that the killer surprised Pamela from behind, stepping out from the curtains. He had to have been hiding there—I reckon while she and Jim were—uh—otherwise engaged. Oh, yes, and Jim said he
took off his coat during all of that. He says he must have left it in the library, and I reckon the killer took it.”
“He put it on and then attacked Miz Thorne?” Again, Hilton’s skepticism was obvious.
Adam nodded. “I can see how it happened—the coat was over the chair next to the curtains where the killer was hiding, or even over the sofa. But when Jim was ready to leave, he went out the main door to the hallway where he was on guard. It’s across the room from the windows. And I reckon Pamela Thorne walked him to the door, so her back was to whatever was happening in the room. They might even have spoken for a minute, or embraced. She wouldn’t have gone out that way herself just in case someone saw her.
“By then, the killer knew he was going to kill her—but why?—and he also knew he couldn’t go around with blood all over him. So he snatched up the coat—or maybe he even did it while they were—uh—distracted and that’s why Jim forgot to take it with him because he didn’t see it. He would have had plenty of time to think it through—the fact that he’d need a way to hide the blood on him.”
Hilton was nodding as he seemed to absorb what Adam was saying. “I still don’t know how you could tell the killer hid behind the curtains, and that business.”
Adam shrugged. “It’s like tracking an animal outside—there are signs and marks of movement inside as well. And part of it is . . . well, I call it ‘knowing.’ It’s as if I become the animal—or in this case, I become the man—and can see through his eyes and understand what he did.” He felt strange putting into words what Ishkode, and his grandfather Makwa had taught him about there being a spiritual part to tracking. Once one learned the basic skills, that element of “knowing” made the tracker exponentially better.
Instead of being derisive in regard to Adam’s explanation, Hilton appeared interested. “I don’t understand it, but I have to believe it, I suppose.”
Murder in the Oval Library Page 24
