When Harry returned to Hawkesworth’s bedroom, he expected to see him and Walter chatting—they seemed to get along so well—but each man was sitting on a different side of the room, not even looking at one another.
“Do you mind I get dressed?” Hawkesworth directed the question to Harry.
“No. Go right ahead.”
“Can I do so in private? I give you my word that I will neither pick up a weapon nor kill myself.”
“Don’t think we can . . .” Harry began.
“Let him!” Walter snapped, and got up and moved for the door.
Harry wasn’t certain how to take that, but after looking from one man to the other, nodded. “We’ll be just outside the door.”
When they were in the hall with the door closed behind them, Harry asked Walter why he’d agreed to break a cardinal rule. You never left a suspect alone to do anything.
“I’d be just as happy if he killed himself,” Walter replied, “and if he tries shoot anybody, I’ll be happy to kill him.”
“I don’t get it. What went on in there?”
“He tried to give me money again.”
“Come on, Walter. I know I don’t have your ‘high intelligence’ but I’m not a moron. Had to be more than that.”
“He told me I might as well hook up with him, because nothing was going to happen to him anyway, and that I should be working for someone who appreciated my talents.”
“Don’t see how you could turn that down. You’ve been looking for someone to appreciate your talents for years.”
“Fuck you, Harry.”
“I take it my talents weren’t part of the deal.”
“I was supposed to cut you out. That was the only thing that made the offer appealing.”
“Well, at least you’ve got your sense of humor back. Do you believe him? That nothing will happen to him?”
“Who knows? This affair is so smelly, nothing is impossible.”
“So what he’s saying is that the statement he had to sign is going in someone’s drawer and as long as he does what he’s told, it’ll stay there.”
“That’s how I read it. He’s just got so much money, he’s better in somebody’s pocket than in prison or dead.”
“Maybe we should kill him then. I’m getting a taste for this.” Harry said it with a grin, but Walter saw that he meant it.
“You going to pull the trigger?”
“I thought you would. You’re the one with the burr.”
“One thing to do it because the president thinks it needs to be done, another to do it on our own.”
Neither man spoke. Was it possible that they had done all this for nothing? Tracked down the perpetrator of one of the worst crimes in American history, only to see him slither out of responsibility?
“Wait a minute, Walter.”
“What?”
“How does Hawkesworth know what’s gonna happen? He’s just guessing . . . or hoping. Unless you think Wilkie or Roosevelt knew about this before and spoke to him.”
“No. I don’t think that. But why the statement then?”
“Shit, Walter. It’s a confession. Don’t we always try to get one of those?”
Walter considered it. “Maybe.”
“More than maybe. It’s at least as possible as his story. That it’s gonna sit in a drawer . . . that I believe. No one wants to see this in the newspapers. Blaming the anarchists suits everyone a lot more . . . except the anarchists. But I don’t see that because Wilkie, or even TR wants a record of the truth it means that Hawkesworth’s gonna get off. I figure they’re gonna take him off to some quiet place and shoot him. Then they can just say he disappeared. Harder to get away with that if he was killed here.”
Walter thought about it. Harry was right. It made just as much sense as Hawkesworth’s version. Maybe more.
“Okay, Harry. But let’s just hand the son of a bitch off and get out of here.”
“You bet.”
Walter knocked on the bedroom door just a second before it opened. Hawkesworth stood in the doorway, dressed in the same suit as he would have worn had he been heading for his office in the bank. And he looked as unconcerned. Could he really be so calm? But Walter realized that demeanor was as much of a source of power to people like Anthony Hawkesworth as brains or ruthlessness. A demeanor that inspired fear and uncertainty in his enemies. If there were a firing squad on his front lawn, Hawkesworth would still appear exactly as he did.
“We’ll wait downstairs,” Walter said evenly. “Your escort should be here any time now.”
“Very well.”
Once in the lobby, Hawkesworth settled into a chair and sat waiting. He made no further attempt to engage Walter or Harry in conversation, and Harry and Walter did not speak to one another. Fifteen minutes later, through a window, they saw a carriage pull up outside the front door.
Four men got out, none of them known to Harry or Walter. All of them had the obvious bearing of lawmen. Harry opened the door to let them in.
“You Swayne?” one of the men asked, apparently the man in charge.
Harry nodded.
The man withdrew an envelope from his coat and handed it to Harry. Inside was a telegram. It read, “These men come on my order. Please deliver your prisoner to them. This will conclude the arrangements made in my office. Please accept the thanks of a grateful nation. I will see you when you return to Washington.” It was signed only with a “W.”
“Okay,” Harry said. “He’s yours.” One of the others immediately escorted Hawkesworth out the door.
“There are servants locked in upstairs and some cleanup,” Harry said. “Mind if we get out of here?”
The man shook his head. “Nope. We’ll take it from here.”
As Walter and Harry got their hats, and started for the door, suddenly they were facing three drawn pistols.
“Sorry fellas,” said the first man, and all three opened fire.
EPILOGUE
Tuesday, October 15, 1901
There’s someone to see you.”
Lucinda looked up. She enjoyed Charlotte. The other volunteers at the orphanage shied away from her because of the burns . . . she was difficult to look at, it was true . . . but Lucinda saw the bright and talented little girl underneath. In the two weeks that she had been working here, Mrs. Morgan saw that Lucinda Swayne would work with children that most of the others would not. Because of her brother, no doubt. She wore scars on the inside every bit as livid as Charlotte’s on the outside.
“Who?” Lucinda hadn’t told anyone that she was working here. And she didn’t intend to. Nor did she intend to tell anyone where she lived, now that she had given up the rooms she had shared with Harry. She intended to live out her life in isolation and swore that she would never again attend a funeral. Let others bury the dead. She had done more than her share.
“A woman,” Mrs. Morgan replied, not moving in from the doorway. “She says she was a friend of Mr. Swayne and Mr. George.”
“Tell her to go away.”
“I did, dear. I told her you didn’t wish to see anyone, but she insisted. She said she has something for you . . . from Mr. George.”
Lucinda turned quickly and looked up. Mrs. Morgan, as always, was perplexed, unable to decide if she was looking at an old-looking young woman, or a young-looking old one. Lucinda patted Charlotte on the hand, feeling the parchment-like flesh against her fingers, and then stood.
“Where is she?”
“In the front parlor,” Mrs. Morgan replied. And then, feeling embarrassed but unable to determine why, she added, “She’s a nun.”
“Why didn’t you say that before?” Lucinda asked. It was probably someone from St. Catherine’s, although how she had gotten something from . . . Walter . . . was a mystery.
But when Lucinda reached the front parlor, the woman sitting primly in the straight back chair was not from St. Catherine’s, nor was it anyone she had ever seen before.
“You have something for me?”
<
br /> The sister looked up at Mrs. Morgan, who had trailed Lucinda into the parlor. She looked slightly out of place in her habit. She was too . . . not beautiful, exactly, nor glamorous, but there were hints of both.
Lucinda turned to Mrs. Morgan and asked her to leave them. Mrs. Morgan stifled a frown, but did as she was asked.
“My name is Natasha Kolodkin,” the woman said softly.
“I know who you are,” Lucinda answered. Except to the children, she had taken to speaking in a monotone.
Natasha waited, but Lucinda did not say anything else.
“Walter asked me to give you something . . . if anything happened.”
Lucinda still did not speak. Natasha reached into the folds of her habit and withdrew an envelope. When Lucinda didn’t move, Natasha reached across and offered it to her. Lucinda stared at the envelope, a look of fear crossing her face.
“I lost my sister too. The same people murdered her as your brother and Walter.”
Lucinda suddenly looked up, fury passing across her face. Natasha jumped. But the look passed and Lucinda reached out her hand for the envelope. “Let me see it,” she said, a sharpness returning to her voice.
Natasha handed the envelope over. Lucinda’s name was written on the front, and the seal was unbroken on the back. It was thick, not just a note, and Lucinda turned it over in her hands a few times, but did not open it. Instead, she looked to Natasha.
“This, I take it, is a disguise and does not reflect a sudden conversion.”
“There are many who want me dead. I wouldn’t survive a week dressed normally. But no one looks closely at a nun.”
“Were you and Walter lovers?”
“No. He was in love with you. It could not have been more clear . . . to everyone but him.”
Lucinda nodded. She was not going to cry. In fact, she had made a vow never to cry again. “Thank you for lying. But I know you were.”
“Only once. And it was at my initiation, not his. And I was not lying about him being in love with you.”
Lucinda held up the envelope. “When did he give you this?”
“The night before he left for Washington.”
“Do you know what’s in it?”
Natasha nodded. “He said that if anything happened, he wanted you to decide what to do with it.”
Lucinda opened the seal and withdrew the contents. There were four pages, written on front and back. On the top of the first page was written, “A true and honest account of the murder of William McKinley.”
Lucinda read through Walter’s testament, trying to feel him where he had handled the paper. She knew most of what he had written, but not the end. Walter hadn’t told her. Anthony Hawkesworth. The banker. He had been in the news. Hawkesworth had suddenly announced his retirement, sale of his holdings, and his intention to move to Europe. But then he and his wife seemed to have disappeared. They were not on the passenger lists of any of the trans-Atlantic steamships, and no one had a record of them traveling to the east coast. Columnists on the society pages had concluded that the Hawkesworths, for reasons unknown, had decided to become rich recluses. But now, Lucinda was fairly certain they had disappeared permanently.
Leon Czolgosz would soon join them. The poor, naïve dupe had been brought to trial less than two weeks after McKinley’s death. The trial had lasted eight hours and it took less than an hour after that to find him guilty.
That would close the door. All of the conspirators were certainly dead as well. And Walter and Harry . . . they were in Arlington, buried in private ceremonies. No one in authority had shown up, although Wilkie had sent her a note that said they had died heroes in the service of a grateful nation, but their duties had been so vital, so secret, that only those closest to them could know the truth.
Lucinda hadn’t believed a word. Harry and Walter were far too accomplished to be killed by people they had been tracking. One of them perhaps, trying to save the other. But not both. Unless they had been betrayed.
When Lucinda had completed the reading, she refolded the papers and put them back in the envelope. She didn’t hate Natasha any more. They had too much loss in common. Too much betrayal.
“What will you do?” she asked.
Natasha shrugged. She looked more and more incongruous in the nun’s habit. “Keep trying,” I suppose. “Working for justice. Fighting the people who get rich off the misery of others. Just as you’re doing here, in your own way.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Lucinda thought it over. “Perhaps. Do you think it will make a difference?”
“To some people it will.”
“Is that enough? For you, I mean?”
Natasha smiled. “It will have to be, won’t it?”
Lucinda nodded. “Yes. I suppose it will.”
Natasha got up and Lucinda followed. Lucinda put out her hand. Natasha took it, held it for a moment, and then turned and walked out the door.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a work a fiction. Although, as will be noted below, most of the people, events, and locations are historically accurate, there is no evidence of that any of the skullduggery depicted in the previous pages comports to the actual history. In other words, no reader should come away from this story thinking that I endorse my version of events as true. Of course, if I’ve done my job, readers will not find any definitive cause to consider these events false.
Walter George, Harry Swayne, Lucinda Swayne, Natasha Kolodkin, and Anthony Hawkesworth are fictional, as are the minor players involved in the conspiracy. Mike Hannigan is also fictional because there is no evidence the real chief of detectives in Chicago on whom Hannigan is based indulged in any of the shenanigans attributed to him.
All the other major characters—Wilkie, Czolgosz, Abe Isaak, Emma Goldman, Big Jim Parker, Foster and Ireland, Mark Hanna, and, of course, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt—are real and drawn as closely as possible to real life. Wilkie did remain on as head of the Secret Service Division, which after President McKinley’s death, was given official responsibility for protecting the president. Leon Czolgosz, who had indeed said that he “done his duty,” was executed in the electric chair at Auburn State Prison on October 29, 1901.
The shooting of President McKinley, his convalescence at Millburn House, and subsequent death are as they happened, drawn from newspaper accounts of the time. The same is true of the roundup, questioning, and eventual freeing of the anarchists in the wake of shooting. Foster and Ireland never could adequately explain their failure to notice the oversized bandage on Czolgosz’s hand, although at one point they said their line of sight was blocked.
The debate over whether to place the Atlantic-Pacific canal in Panama or Nicaragua took place precisely as is depicted. McKinley favored Nicaragua, as did Roosevelt initially, while Secretary of State Hay, third in line for the presidency, always favored the Panama option. The United States ultimately paid $40,000,000 for the French rights and equipment, and did foment a revolution in Panama that resulted in its independence from Colombia.
ALSO BY
LAWRENCE GOLDSTONE
NONFICTION
Birdmen
Drive
Going Deep
Dark Bargain
The Activist
Inherently Unequal
FICTION
Deadly Cure
Anatomy of Deception
The Astronomer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I was born in Brooklyn, and had one of those idyllic city childhoods—stickball in the streets, riding my 400 pound Schwinn two-wheeler down the steep hill abutting the cemetery, and playing cops and robbers with the children of real cops and robbers.
I grew up with an extremely critical eye for history. I eventually got a PhD from the New School for Social Research, writing my dissertation on the underemphasized role of slave economics at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Thirty years later, I turned it into a book, Dark Bargain.
At various times, I’ve been a lectur
er, senior member of a Wall Street trading firm, taxi driver, actor, quiz show contestant, and policy analyst at the Hudson Institute. My first real writing gig was a $10 op-ed column for a local weekly in the Berkshires, which was invaluable as both an outlet and learning experience.
By now, I’ve written well over a dozen books of both fiction and non-fiction, six of which were co-authored with my wife Nancy. In either discipline, I think it’s the writer’s responsibility to engage the reader, to tell a compelling story, not the reader’s responsibility to try to figure out what’s going on. I’ve had articles, reviews, and opinion pieces that have appeared in, among other publications, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Hartford Courant, New Republic, and Berkshire Eagle. I’ve also written for a number of magazines that have gone bust, although I deny any cause and effect.
ASSASSIN OF SHADOWS
Pegasus Crime is an imprint of
Pegasus Books Ltd.
148 W. 37th Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2019 by Lawrence Goldstone
First Pegasus Books cloth edition June 2019
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN: 978-1-64313-130-6
ISBN: 978-1-64313-187-0 (ebk.)
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company
Assassin of Shadows Page 24
