by David Luchuk
Thaddeus!
“Your son had an interesting idea, Allan.”
You guessed the location of the turbines, then?
“No. We have something a bit different in mind.”
Robert is not safe in that flimsy aircraft. If he drifts beyond the platform, he will tip into the fire. Follow him.
“That will not help.”
Follow him, I say! We have to keep the steam platform under him. We can offer cover, at least, until you pull Robert back onto the Protocol. There must be a real gun somewhere in this weapons laboratory.
“Cover him from what? We cannot tell friend from foe down there.”
Just stay behind him, professor. Whoever shoots at us, we’ll shoot back.
* * *
Kate Warne, Detective
November, 1861
I crossed into Confederate territory at Knoxville in Tennessee, looking every bit like a desperate outcast on the run. Any semblance of normal train service, such as we are accustomed to seeing in the north, disappeared entirely. Rusted tracks staked into wooden ties communicated more clearly than words that I was in a different sort of America.
From Knoxville, I fell in with a shuffling crowd of refugee families and slavery enthusiasts moving south on foot. We were a pitiful group. Half the men were draftees running scared. Half the women were widows. It would have been faster for me to travel by water but the naval route ran past Chesapeake Bay. That was out of the question.
I am not superstitious. I don’t believe in vengeful spirits from beyond the grave. I just know, in the way a bare knuckler knows not to get up once a fight is lost, that I am not welcome at Chesapeake Bay.
I was there when Major Robert Anderson declared his personal war on all things decent and civilized in the United States. Anderson had been Commander at Fort Sumter where he was cooked alive, seared by a steam explosion set off by Confederate troops. Sumter was destroyed and every soldier inside died. All but Anderson, that is. He survived, flung clear by the blast. His skin was fused into a thick mutilated scab. Whatever dignity and honor the man knew before was also wiped away, erased like the features of his face. His ideas and morals are as mangled as his body.
Anderson put himself above the President, and valued his whims above the lives of every person living on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. The day he launched his private militia, he detonated the engines of every boat in a Union shipyard and turned Chesapeake to rubble. Homes became crypts. Villages became graveyards.
Given the choice between sailing past Chesapeake Bay and ambling amid the cold and shelter-less refuges of this war, I chose to travel by land. That was an easy decision.
Our caravan made slow progress. We had to stop to search for strays who wandered into the dense forest. Sometimes we found them, sometimes not. The group gradually thinned as we pressed further into rebel territory.
We crossed paths with soldiers from both Union and Confederate armies. They marched in lines but had no sense of where they were going. Groups were too small to be full military units. They camped in huddled cliques. Formations crossed without firing. In some cases, they mixed to fill ranks. These were Major Anderson’s new hopefuls. They deserted their posts in the Union and Confederate armies, hoping to join his rogue militia. All over America, soldiers like these were trying to find him.
The troops were of no interest to me. Let them fight or let them desert. It is all the same, so long as this war claims the life of Robert Anderson before it ends.
Our rabble finally stopped, along with hundreds of other refugees, at a line of checkpoints on the Tennessee border. We saw the signal fires from a mile away. Actual fires. These were not gas-flame projectors looming over treetops such as you would find up north. Real wood burned on the forest floor charring the checkpoint stations.
Confederate soldiers pulled the helpless out of their wagons. Old people were pushed down. Chests full of cherished items were thrown open. A low ranking officer, a Corporal, pulled me aside. His face was so cratered he could have passed as a smallpox survivor.
I felt a panic in my gut. Robert’s audio device was hidden inside a box marked with apothecary stamps. If the soldier caught me with Union technology, I might never get to Wilmington to pursue the investigation I was sent to conduct.
I did not bring much in the way of specialized equipment. Other than Robert’s recorder, there were only a few pieces of mining gear.
The clapper is little more than a telescoping baton. With a flick of the wrist, it extends to full length, thick as rolled newspaper. The shell is hollow with a heavy iron rod set inside. When the baton is swung forward, firing pins pull back and then release on impact. The iron rod hammers against the inside of the shell and delivers quite a blow.
I also brought the tent shield. It is an emergency tool to protect underground miners from a ceiling collapse. The shield comes in a pouch clipped onto a belt buckle. When the pin is pulled, thin structural tubes spray out and snap into position forming triangles that link together into a half-dome. A huge amount of weight can be carried on top. When the last pieces snap into place, the user is thrust inside.
These were minor precautions on my part but, if discovered, the tools would ruin everything. I handed over my papers. Agency credentials were plainly visible in the bundle along with my pistol. There was no reason to hide my name or occupation. The idea was to infiltrate the south as myself.
The soldier lifted my apothecary box. He scratched the stamps and saw they were recently applied, surely fake. He turned the box over, listening for the jingle of little bottles. It made no sound but engaged the sound recorder.
“Where to, Miss Detective?”
“To Wilmington. On business.”
“What sort?”
“Murder.”
“Ain’t there enough dead Yankees to keep you busy up north?”
The Corporal wrote a note but never opened the apothecary box. He knew it was contraband but left it alone for reasons I could not explain.
The soldier let me through. Not everyone in our group was so lucky.
From Knoxville, I took a train toward the coast. Trains move so much slower in the south. Coal smoke belches from engines that grind over single tracks. Delays are to be expected. Breakdowns are common. Track widths have not even been standardized. It baffles the mind. Trains from different states, even neighboring towns, cannot travel onto connecting lines. First they are too wide, then too narrow.
Southern towns are sprawling and tranquil. Carriageways wind between plantations with no factories to be seen. To the Confederate mind, a factory is an eye sore. The dignity of men is offended by the shame of manual labor. They pay for these ideals with the blood of slaves.
I expected to find Wilmington buzzing with action. This city played a crucial role in the Confederate war plan. With Lincoln’s naval blockade still in effect, few large ports were open. Blockade runners needed somewhere to deliver goods. That place was Wilmington.
I believed it would be alive with tradesmen, privateers and the like. Ten thousand people were reputed to live there. When I arrived, fewer than a hundred remained. The old town retained its coastal charm. Buildings were intact. The foundries were stocked. Lumber mills were piled with wood. There were just no people.
Not knowing what else to do in the almost empty town, I set about my work. The murder victim, George Gordon, was killed at his father’s bank, which I easily located near the water. Only a burned husk remained of the Gordon Bank.
Much of the block where it stood was burned as well but only the buildings on that specific block. It was odd. Amid so much damage, there was only one fatality, one victim. That was peculiar
as well.
The murder itself was a macabre affair. George Gordon was viciously attacked. Police have been unable to solve the crime. George was a night teller. He was no rich man’s brat. He balanced deposits and withdrawals against cash in the vault. He allowed select clients to conduct business after regular hours. He worked late. Someone sunk a cancelling hammer into George’s head then left him to burn.
George’s father was distraught. He offered to pay any fee. It was a sign of desperation but Wilmington is Confederate territory. Mr. Pinkerton is a Union man. The Agency declined the contract, allowing me to pick it up when I fled. I came to Wilmington posing as an able detective with nowhere to turn. It was more or less true.
Herbert Gordon, the victim’s father, kept a new office near the ruined bank, close to the water’s edge. I pulled the bell and waited at his door. A faint voice answered from the window above.
“Get away.”
“I am Kate Warne of the Pinkerton Agency.”
A face emerged. The man’s skin was yellow. His lips were crusted black. That was the first time I laid eyes on the sickness gripping Wilmington. The town is rotting. The smell of decay is a ripe cloud. What few residents remain burn a kind of incense, day and night. I smell it everywhere. They are covering the horrible stench of this place.
I climbed the stairs to Gordon’s waterfront office. He sat alone at a crooked angle behind an empty desk. His skin seemed clownish from street level. Up close it was grotesque. The color was deepest, almost brown, on the left side of his face. A dark hue ran from his collar over his eye, as though a shadow was overtaking him.
Gordon bit at his lip. Black crust broke away. I did not offer to shake his hand.
“I am here about your son.”
“George.”
Footsteps echoed in the stairwell, bounding up two at a time. I tensed, ready for the situation to turn violent, but the man who pushed through the door was as happy as anyone I have seen since leaving the north.
This was the bank’s co-owner, Louis Bannan. He showed no sign of sickness. His face was flushed from running, healthy. Bannan stood tall. His broad shoulders were pulled back in the upright manner shared by all men with money.
“Our prayers have been answered.”
I explained my circumstance. I was a fugitive, no longer employed by the Agency. The Pinkertons did not intend to take the case. Gordon and Bannan could turn it over to me or continue on their own.
“Whatever brought you to Wilmington, you are welcome,” Bannan said.
I asked to see the crime scene. This brought Gordon out of his stupor. He held out a yellow hand and swallowed air as he tried to speak. Bannan settled him down.
“That won’t be practical, Detective. You need rest. We have an apartment you can use. I will have police records delivered. We will visit the scene tomorrow.”
I saw no reason to argue. I was hungry and needed to sleep.
The apartment was long and narrow. It looked like a recent addition. The lodging was attached to the same building where Gordon rented his office. As we entered, Bannan lit candles to cut the stale air.
More incense. It coated the back of my throat. I coughed. That made it worse. I invited Bannan and Gordon to stay. They declined.
That night, my dreams were filled with peril. I slid off the roof of a train, scratching in vain to hold on. A thresher tore me to pieces. I burned at Chesapeake Bay. I fell from the sky over Bull Run. In every incident, death took its revenge.
I woke with a start. A woman’s voice echoed in my ear but I was alone in the room. My pistol was drawn and cocked. I took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall. After a moment, I realized I was resting my temple against the barrel. My finger was on the trigger.
It was morning. I heard a knock at the door. Bannan was outside.
“We are ready for you.”
What followed was a strange recreation. Gordon waited for us at the bank. It took a great effort for him to hold his body against a black cane, long as a staff. Much of the bank’s exterior fell away in the fire. Gordon still insisted on entering through the empty frame of its side door.
“The killer came in through here,” Gordon said.
“Sir, this will not be necessary,” I insisted.
Bannan put a hand on my shoulder. He gave a nod, encouraging me to let it be.
Gordon struggled forward. From behind, dried blood stood out against his yellow skin. The man was decomposing. He insisted I stand where his son would have opened the door. I felt ridiculous but did as I was asked.
Bannan lit more candles. The smell was obnoxious. My cough came back as soon as I breathed it in.
Gordon cut a slow path through the rubble. He veered around places where wooden counters and desks piled with account books once stood. It was as if he could not see the desolation, only a memory of his former business.
The vault was intact. Its door hung open.
According to the police report, bundles of bills were recovered after the fire. It was another curious aspect of the case. Why go to the trouble of murdering a teller and burning the building, only to make a hash of emptying the vault?
“This is where I found my boy.”
Gordon held his hand over the spot. Clothes lay on the filthy ground. He shifted me into the position he wanted. I stood several paces back from the pile of clothes, facing the open vault.
“George stood here, you see. This is where he kept his books.”
A cancelling hammer was on the floor near my foot. It was a crude device with a heavy iron head shape like an X. The hammer was used to mark checks no longer honored by a bank. In this instance, it delivered a lethal blow to the back of George Gordon’s head.
“These items are similar to those found after the murder?” I asked.
“They are the very ones we found that morning.” Gordon said.
“Why are they not being held by police as evidence?”
Gordon wheezed. Bannan pursed his lips. Neither offered an explanation. The shoddy work did not surprise me much. The effort by local police was a debacle so far as I could tell from the report.
George Gordon did not drink or gamble. There were no loose women in his life. He had no outstanding debts. Despite these facts, police pursued a series of dead ends. They interrogated local drunks and card sharks. They arrested drifters. Little wonder that Mr. Gordon turned to the Pinkertons.
“Did the bank’s records survive the fire?” I asked.
“Yes. We keep a copy off-site,” Bannan said.
The only useful evidence police retained from the crime scene were scraps of paper that fell under George’s body. His corpse shielded them from the blaze. They were filled with numbers, handwritten in long calculations. It was the diligent young teller’s way of ensuring that his books balanced against the vault.
There was nothing incriminating in the notes. However, on the back of the last sheet, George made one separate calculation. It was the same as the others, setting a withdrawal or deposit against an existing balance or debt. He opened a new account number for the exchange. What was interesting is that George chose to set it apart.
It seemed plausible that George might struggle to keep his numbers straight after a long day. If someone came to the bank after it closed, someone who George trusted, he might have allowed one final transaction. It would have been a courtesy. Under those conditions, George might set the record apart to deal with it the next day.
Numbers on the back of that sheet could have been the last money exchange George Gordon processed on the night he was killed. Taken on its own, this did not help a great deal. What made the theory interesting was the fact
that George’s pen slashed the page under those numbers. He left a gash of ink across an incomplete calculation. George Gordon might actually have been struck on the head while adding those very numbers.
My clients accompanied me back to their office. They retrieved bank records and supervised as I looked for accounts to match numbers on the back of George’s final sheet. It was a long process. I was tired. Numbers danced on the page.
None of the balances matched George’s calculations for the new account. Gordon and Bannan were bored. To fill empty minutes, I asked questions. I wanted to keep them occupied so I could concentrate.
“Why did police ignore George’s politics as a motive?”
“My son did not have politics.” Mr. Gordon took offense.
“He wrote and distributed anti-slavery pamphlets.”
I cross checked new accounts against outstanding debts. These were recorded in separate sections of the log. It was a tangle of data.
“That was his friend’s doing. George was naive, no more,” Gordon said.
I identified a series of small debts that had accumulated over the past year. These were registered under the same client number but spread over many different accounts. By pooling them together, then comparing them to figures for the account George was in the process of opening, the victim’s final calculations emerged. One of the bank’s long standing customers was shifting money from one account to another to cover minimum payments on a mounting debt.
“We could arrange for you to meet this friend,” Bannan offered.
I tracked the client numbers back to an initial deposit. I found a name.
“Who would that be?” I asked.
“Nate Drysdale.”
I could not have been more surprised. I was looking at that very name in the bank registry.
“Mr. Gordon, I believe Nate Drysdale may have murdered your son.”
The evidence was circumstantial. Gordon and Bannan argued against the notion at first. Once I walked them through the accounts, they became convinced. Drysdale was in financial trouble. George trusted him enough to let him enter the bank after closing. The motive for George’s murder was money. Just money. I was not surprised.
