Murder in the Lincoln White House

by C. M. Gleason

  He carefully pulled away the makeshift shroud.

  Fremark emitted a sound of protest as the victim was uncovered, but he made no further comment when Adam handed him the cloth. The two men Pinkerton had sent along to assist stood back and watched silently.

  A faint scent of blood hung in the air; Adam could almost taste the iron tang of it, though there didn’t seem to be very much blood. Perhaps it was his own acute memories that enhanced the scent to one so strong.

  No one spoke as he looked at the sprawled figure. From the ballroom only a narrow corridor away, he could hear the sounds of celebration and music. Thus, the party went on, the revelers blissfully ignorant of the violence and ugliness only a few yards distant.

  For a moment, Adam had the unpleasant sense that this scene of carnage, so very close to innocent celebration and ignorant gaiety, was a dark hint of days to come.

  He continued to stand, using that perspective to take in the full view of two relatively small bloodstains on the man’s shirt and waistcoat. The blood was still wet and shiny on the fabric, but no longer seeping from several wounds. Surely the murder couldn’t have happened more than thirty minutes ago. Perhaps less. There was one larger stain near the middle of the waistcoat, and another smaller one on the shirt. The tear where the blade had gone in through layers of waistcoat and shirt was perhaps two inches wide. Adam found it curious that the man’s cutaway coat was missing.

  The victim himself looked about forty. He was well groomed with a neatly trimmed light brown beard that flowed into thick sideburns. Of course, nearly every man present tonight would have been washed, trimmed, and combed in honor of the ball.

  “Do you know this man, Mr. Fremark?” Adam asked at last.

  “Yes,” Fremark said. “Yes, I’ve seen him. I don’t really know him personally, but I know who he is.”

  “And?” Adam prompted as he at last lowered himself to the floor, settling his pinched and aching feet next to the body. “What’s his name? What do you know about him?”

  “That’s Custer Billings,” said Fremark. “He’s a banker.”

  “You found him right here, then, Mr. Fremark?” he asked, crouched on his haunches a mere finger length away from the body as he tried to determine how to proceed.

  What was important? What should he be looking for? Why the damned hell did Lincoln think he was capable of resolving this matter? Wasn’t this a matter for the authorities?

  “Yes. He was just lying there.”

  “Was he like this when you found him?” Adam asked.

  “Oh, yes . . . oh, yes.” Fremark was pacing, his slender fingers waving nervously inside their white gloves. The Union ribbon pinned to his lapel fluttered with his agitation. “I had walked over to City Hall to use the—well, I didn’t want to be fumbling outside at an outhouse dressed like this. So I went over there for a moment for the necessary, and when I came back through here on my way to the ball, I came around the corner and there he was. Just lying there, like this. I was only gone for ten minutes, maybe fifteen. I don’t understand how it could have happened so quickly.

  “I—I was sure Billings was dead right away—there was blood, and he wasn’t moving. I did kneel at his side—”

  “And then? You didn’t touch him or move him?”

  “No, no, I—well, I probably shouted, and then seeing that no one was about, I ran to get help. To tell someone. I found Mr. Pinkerton right away.” He gave a delicate shudder. “There was nothing like walking into a room and seeing a man with a blade sticking out of his stomach. I’m going to have nightmares.”

  “Did you see anyone else—wait. A blade? Sticking out of his stomach?” Adam repeated slowly, craning his head to look up at him. “You saw a blade in his stomach?”

  “Why, yes, of course. It wasn’t very big. It’s right—it’s gone.” Fremark’s voice squeaked up a notch. “But it was right there!”

  “How long were you gone after you discovered him? Did you pass anyone when you left this room to get Pinkerton? Did you hear anything, anyone, any sound that might have been unusual?”

  “No, no. I didn’t see anyone. No one at all. Wait—I might have passed someone in the hall as I went back to find Pinkerton. I-I don’t remember. Maybe. Maybe someone. It was only about ten minutes, maybe a little more, from the time I found him till I brought Pinkerton back. I don’t remember anything unusual—other than that I had just seen a dead body with a knife sticking out of it.” He was wringing his hands now, and his voice remained at that tight upper octave. “I-I can’t remember. I was just running back to the dance hall, and . . .” His hands flapped wildly.

  Adam closed his eyes to think. Had the murderer been interrupted by Fremark? Had he hidden somewhere when he heard Fremark’s approach, then waited until he left to take the knife out of the body? Why had he chosen this place, here and now, one of the most public places in the city, to stab the man? Why was the man’s dress coat missing? And surely he would have had a hat and walking stick.... They were gone as well.

  “All right, Mr. Fremark,” he said, opening his eyes once more. “All right. Now, think for a moment. Did you see anyone when you walked through on your way to City Hall to use the necessary? Before you found Mr. Billings? Or on the way back—either time, walking across the square? Are you certain there was no one around at all?”

  Fremark had regained his composure. “I was in a hurry. The president had just arrived, and I didn’t want to miss anything, so I was going as fast as I could to get to City Hall and get back. My wife was mad that I had to leave the dance; she was hoping to get a spot in the quadrille near Mrs. Lincoln, but—well. Nature calls.” He gave a rueful smile. “So I came through the room here. It was empty. I-I went outside and was starting across the wooden walkway they put down, to keep the mud off, you know, and I was rushing because—hold up.” His eyes widened. “Hold up. Maybe I did see someone there. In the shadows, right outside the doorway.” He straightened up, and now there was a gleam of certainty. “Now that you mention it, I think I did see someone. Two people. Right there—they weren’t on the walkway, so I didn’t really pay them any mind.”

  “What were they doing?”

  Fremark shrugged. “I-I don’t know. I just hurried by, but now that you mention it, I remember voices and the impression of people standing there. Maybe I wondered for a minute why they were standing in the mud, off the walkway, in the shadows—maybe I thought it might have been, well, a-a secret meeting—but I was in a hurry. So I just went on my way.”

  “A secret meeting?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know!” Fremark held his head in his hands, his ears protruding from between his fingers. “I can’t really remember. I don’t remember anything much. The—the sight of the body just—it just—”

  “All right there, Mr. Fremark. And when you came back? How long was it? And they were gone? The people you saw?”

  “That’s right. I came back and they were gone. And I opened the door,” he said, gesturing to the door leading to the outside, “and then I saw him. Right here on the floor.” His voice was going tense and sharp again. “I went to get Pinkerton.”

  “And you reckon you might have passed someone in the hall on the way to get Mr. Pinkerton.”

  “Yes, yes. Maybe. That’s all I know. That’s all I remember.”

  Adam nodded. Then, sensing he had all the information he was going to get from Fremark—at least at the moment—he trained his attention once more on the unfortunate Custer Billings. Scoring his attention carefully over the body, he absorbed every detail, looking for anything out of place or disturbed. Anything that struck him.

  All at once, in a burst of clarity, he realized what he was doing—what he’d been tasked to do—was hardly any different from how he’d learned to track in the woods, how to read the signs and language of nature. For when he was twenty, he’d moved to Wisconsin and met a young Ojibwe man with whom he partnered in a trapping business.

  Ishkode had shown Adam the way
to recognize when a stick was broken by a footstep, a paw, or a hoof. Or the particular pattern in which grasses or brush were disturbed, and how to determine the direction whatever had disturbed them had been moving. Some of it, he’d learned, was instinct: that innate sense that something was not as it should be. It was the same intuition that had drawn his notice to the journalist today.

  And some of it was pure observation.

  And even more of it was knowledge: the ability to identify a species or a paw print, or in this case . . . something left behind.

  “Hello there,” Adam said quietly when he noticed just that: several short golden brown hairs clinging to the fingertip of one of Billings’s gloved hands.

  “Get me a . . . an envelope. Or a napkin. A piece of clean paper,” he said, speaking to the younger of Pinkerton’s agents. That one had at least seemed interested in the proceedings—unlike that of his companion, who stared off into the distance. “I need something for these.” He held up the finger toward the agent. Adam needed a safe way to save the hairs—and, for that matter, any other small item of interest. Who knew what might be important later down this path.

  With the hairs still perched delicately on his fingertip, Adam continued his examination of the body. It was necessary that it remain, for the time being, mostly a visual one. For one hand was employed by holding the tiny clues, and the other was hardly useful for anything other than inelegantly pinching and grasping—and then only with some maneuvering to set the wooden digits into position.

  “And you,” he said, catching the eye of the other agent, who’d thus far done nothing but hold up the wall, “I reckon you can empty the man’s pockets. Take everything out and lay it on the ground there for me to see.” He’d been balanced on the balls of his feet, down on his haunches, for some time and his thighs were beginning to ache.

  Nevertheless, Adam waited patiently as the agent did as he requested. Fremark stood back and watched with what could only be described as morbid fascination.

  With the dress coat missing, there wasn’t much in the way of personal items to find on Billings’s person. Inside his waistcoat was a pocket watch, and in another small, shallow pocket was a handkerchief. The pockets of his trousers were empty of everything except a business card.

  Adam held out his left arm, maneuvering his elbow close to his torso in order to twist his false hand palm up, and the agent set the card there. Mr. Hurst Lemagne, Frenchwood Plantation, Alboit, Alabama, it read.

  Lemagne.

  Constance’s father? Her absent father, who, according to her, had been missing from the ball for some time. Adam frowned thoughtfully, then allowed the card to slide onto the floor next to the other objects.

  There wasn’t much blood around the body, but there were many dusty footprints from the myriad people who’d walked through the room, along with a few muddy prints that were in various stages of drying.

  A wooden walkway had been laid out between City Hall and this temporary building in order to keep the guests’ fine shoes from becoming dirty when traveling across the muddy square. But some people hadn’t been able to completely avoid the muck—which was no surprise, as the streets of Washington were notoriously wet and dirty.

  Just then, the other agent returned. He was, blessedly and miraculously, carrying a small stack of envelopes. “Borrowed them from one of the offices in City Hall,” he said with a cheeky grin.

  “Thank you. What was your name again?” Adam eased the minuscule golden hairs into one of the envelopes, then carefully pulled to his feet.

  “Hobey Pierce, sir,” replied the young man. He looked barely twenty, with no beard to speak of and a shock of strawberry-blond hair. His nose was anointed with freckles and his two front teeth were too large for the rest of them.

  “Well done. Thank you.”

  Before Adam could say anything further, there was a dull thump from behind them. He turned and noticed the small door to the utility closet.

  Without speaking, he strode over and yanked it open. A mop and a broom fell out, clattering onto the floor . . . but what was even more interesting was the pair of shocked eyes that met his. Familiar eyes, beneath a battered derby hat and just above a luxurious golden brown mustache.

  “Who are you?” Adam demanded, yanking the odd journalist out from the closet. “And why are you hiding in there?”

  The man stumbled as his feet landed on the ground, barely keeping his balance because of Adam’s force.

  “I—” he began in a voice high with fear. “I was just—”

  “Mr. Quinn!” Hobey Pierce had taken the initiative and looked inside the closet. He emerged, holding a black dress coat.

  As he pulled it free, something clattered to the ground.

  A knife. There was blood on it.

  The journalist gasped, his eyes going wide and round. “How did—I didn’t put that there. I didn’t,” he said.

  Adam glared down at the weaselly little man. The only significant thing about him was his magnificent mustache. “What’s your name? What are you doing here?”

  “H-Henry . . . Altman. I’m a reporter.” He pulled from Adam’s grip and straightened up. A flash of fury replaced the initial apprehension in his eyes. His voice squeaked high with agitation. “I’m just doing my job. I didn’t know there was a knife in there.”

  “Why were you hiding, then?”

  “I told you, I—”

  The outside door flew open, and a woman wrapped in a cloak came in from the night. Adam recognized her, for she’d been at Willard’s Hotel earlier today—where the Lincolns, as well as he, had been staying. It was Elizabeth Keckley, a free black woman whose gray-streaked hair and delicate lines lining her forehead suggested an age of around fifty. She was a seamstress who’d been called in earlier today to meet with Mrs. Lincoln.

  He immediately stepped toward her in an effort to somehow block her from seeing the obvious. The last thing he wanted was for Mrs. Keckley to carry the word to Mary Lincoln—or anyone—that there’d been a murder here at the ball. Then he would have failed at his task more quickly than even he’d supposed.

  “Oh, Mr. Quinn! I heard there was a—an accident, and I thought maybe a doctor might be needed. Someone who wouldn’t carry tales.” She stopped, slightly out of breath, as Adam’s attention turned to the man who’d followed her inside—even as he wondered how someone had already heard about the dead man.

  Mrs. Keckley’s companion—possibly her son?—had dark skin, brown as a walnut. Though he met Adam’s eyes unflinchingly, his steady gaze was marred by a trace of wariness. He was a well-turned-out man around Adam’s age, maybe a little older than thirty, and he wore a close-cropped beard and mustache as well as a morning coat. He carried a black derby hat but wore no gloves. “I’m George Hilton. Dr. George Hilton,” he said in a deep, carefully modulated voice.

  “We don’t need no nig—”

  Adam spun, his arm coming out in a sharp gesture to silence the second Pinkerton agent. “You,” he said to him, eyes narrowed with anger, “find out where Custer Billings lives, and if any of his family is present. Don’t tell anyone why.” Then he turned to Hilton. “You’re a medical doctor?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Thank you for coming. Unfortunately, this man’s need for a doctor is long past.”

  He turned back to the woman. “But thank you for thinking of bringing him, Mrs. Keckley.” He itched to ask her how she’d learned of the death so quickly.

  She seemed surprised that he remembered her name. “We were already here, sir. George drove me here. He knew I wanted to see Mrs. Lincoln at the ball, but there’s the curfew, you know, and we . . .” Her voice trailed off as the doctor stiffened slightly, perhaps from shame . . . or fear.

  “Miss Lizzie.” His voice was quiet, and he watched Adam warily.

  “Curfew?” Adam said, and then with a flush of disgust, he remembered. There was a Black Code in Washington City, part of which imposed a ten o’clock curfew on all Negroes—wh
ether they be slave or free. As it was nearing midnight, obviously George Hilton was taking a risk bringing this woman—who didn’t seem to be a relative, based on the way he addressed her—here. Though her skin was light and she might pass for white, the doctor certainly could not.

  Adam glanced at the Pinkerton agent, who was just leaving through the interior door, then said to Dr. Hilton, “If you’d like to look at the body and see if there’s anything you notice that might give us a clue to who did this, Doctor, I’d be much obliged. I’ll vouch for you should anyone ask,” he added.

  “Of course, sir,” he said, some of the wariness easing from his stance. “Thank you, sir.” He removed his hat and knelt next to Custer Billings’s body.

  At that moment, the exterior door slammed and Adam spun around to realize Henry Altman was gone. “Damn!”

  He bolted after the little sneak, dashing through the door and out into the dark, chilly night.

  To his relief, he caught sight of the journalist hurrying along the edge of the building, obviously trying to stay in the shadows while avoiding the muddy area that had most recently been part of the construction of the hall.

  “Stop!” he shouted, running after him. Though he was lame in one arm, there was nothing wrong with his legs—other than the fact that they topped sore and pinched feet—and it was no hardship for Adam to catch up to the man. “Henry Altman! Stop now!”

  The man glanced behind him, the hat tumbling off his head and to the ground, and increased his speed. But he was no match for his pursuer’s long legs, and at last Adam got close enough to lunge for the reporter.

  He caught hold of the back of Altman’s coat and yanked as they both stumbled to a stop on the small area of muddy lawn between City Hall and the dance hall.