Lincoln's Ransom

by Tim Champlin

  The voice grated into his concentration, and he glanced up. Boston Corbett stood about six feet away, pointing him out to a tall man in a gray overcoat beside him. Packard realized these were the two he’d rushed past as he came in.

  “What?” He was momentarily taken aback and didn’t know just how to react to this man.

  “You’re certain this is one of the men who kidnapped you?” the tall, graying man said, sliding back his overcoat to rest his hand on his gun.

  “Who’re you?” Packard stammered.

  “Cyrus Morgan, Special Police Detective, City of Saint Joseph.” His calm manner was much more reassuring than the wild demeanor of the mad preacher, in spite of the fact that the blue-gray eyes regarding him were as cold as the November dawn.

  “My name...is Sterling Packard,” he said, still panting. “I’m an undercover agent...for the United States Secret Service out of Chicago. I’ll be glad to give you the whole story...and believe me...there’s more than kidnapping involved. Just let me send a telegram to my chief, first.”

  He turned to take up the pencil again, when he felt the muzzle of Morgan’s gun pressing into his back. He froze, then, very slowly, turned to face him.

  “If you’re an undercover agent, let me see some identification.”

  “I told you I’m working undercover. You don’t think I’m carrying anything like that on me, do you?”

  He eyed Packard’s rough exterior. “If you’re an undercover agent, I’m President Grant.”

  Packard held his hands out. “Look, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I haven’t got time to explain right now. I’ve got to get a message off to my boss. There are three men after me. They’re the ones who stole Abraham Lincoln’s body and are holding it for ransom.”

  “You’re one of them!” Corbett yelled, wild-eyed.

  Morgan reached out, flipped open Packard’s coat, lifted the Colt from its holster, and shoved it into the side pocket of his overcoat. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “To the jail. My chief will want to question you.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not unless you resist.”

  “But I’m a lawman! I’m on your side. All you have to do to verify that I’m who I say I am is send a telegram to this name and address and wait for an answer.”

  “Even if a reply comes back that they have an agent named Sterling Packard, how do I know that’s you?”

  He could feel it all slipping away again. McGuinn or Hughes or Kinealy himself might be coming down the street right now, and here he was, arguing with these idiots and trying to defend himself. “This can’t be happening,” he muttered.

  “That’s it, Cy,” Corbett said with gleeful familiarity. “Don’t let him talk you out of it. I was there. They tied me up and beat me. Him and three other men. And they had that body right with them in that wagon.”

  “O K, O K, you’ve told me all that several times,” Morgan interrupted with some irritation. “Come along, you. We’ll get this all sorted out at the station. And don’t try anything foolish, because I haven’t lived to be this age by taking any chances with prisoners.”

  Packard sagged dejectedly as Morgan deftly ran one hand over him, feeling for hidden weapons. He determined to make one more try. “Just let me send this telegram before I go. What can it hurt?”

  “No. If you really are an agent....”

  “He’s no agent of the government,” Corbett interrupted. “He’s an agent of the devil. Don’t listen to him, Cy. He’ll have you all twisted in knots. That’s the way Satan fooled Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.”

  “Will you shut up and let me handle this?” Morgan exploded. “Let’s go Packard, or whatever your name is. The chief should just be getting to the office about now.”

  “I’ve got to get a telegram off to my boss or these extortionists will get away,” Packard insisted, a note of desperation in his voice.

  Morgan shook his head firmly.

  Packard played his last card. “Do you want the newspapers all over the country spreading the word that Cyrus Morgan was responsible for this gang of grave-robbers escaping again, just when we almost had them?”

  “If you’re telling the truth, we have some good policemen right here in Saint Joe who can take care of arresting these men,” he said unperturbed, then gestured with the gun. “Let’s go down to the jail where we can talk in private.” He threw a glance at the telegrapher who had taken off his eyeshade and stood, looking from one to the other of them, his blue eyes snapping and his chubby cheeks flushed with excitement.

  Packard heaved a sigh and his shoulders sagged as he preceded Morgan and Corbett out the door. If he was any judge, the telegrapher would have this news all over town in ten minutes, and whatever chance he had of capturing this gang would go spinning away like a trash barrel lid in a Kansas tornado.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Busted my damned lip.” Big Jim Kinealy carefully touched his mouth, spat out the salty taste of blood, and went back into the Hanrahan house. He ignored his wife and McGuinn who were silently gathering in the front parlor with Hughes.

  McGuinn picked up the lantern from the floor, turned up the wick, and set it on the marble-top table.

  Hughes was sitting on the sofa, handkerchief pressed to the side of his head where Packard’s gun barrel had struck him.

  “You O K?” Kinealy asked.

  “I’m going to kill that son-of-a-bitch!” Hughes hissed in reply.

  “Well, you’ll have to hurry, then,” Kinealy said sarcastically. “Because he’s probably halfway to the river road by now.”

  “Jim, are you hurt?” Janice asked solicitously.

  “No, I’m just great,” he snorted, laying his pistol on the table and brushing the dirt and grass off his long johns. “Just got run down by a horse, and Packard has taken off to who knows where.”

  “Let me see that cut on your mouth,” Janice said, moving toward him.

  But he was feeling mean and brushed past her into the kitchen where he pumped some water onto a towel and wiped his face. His lower lip was split and raw, and one of his teeth was loose. He was barefoot and had stepped on some of the broken glass in the parlor and cut his heel. He sat down on the floor and wiped his feet with the wet towel, using the opportunity to calm himself and to think. He would have to decide, and quickly, what was to be done, and the three in the next room were awaiting his orders. He had been cautious about Packard from the beginning, but it had availed nothing in the end. The man was a puzzle. Whatever, or whoever, he was, Packard was no longer a member of this small group. Kinealy could only assume Packard was a serious threat to the success of the operation, and act accordingly.

  He finished wiping the blood and dirt from his feet and stood up, feeling the soreness in the thick pectoral muscles of his chest where the horse had struck him a glancing blow. His short sleep had been interrupted twice this night, and he felt his big body sagging with fatigue. But this was not the time for rest.

  He squared his shoulders and strode resolutely back into the lamplit parlor. “O K, let’s have your stories about what happened. You first, Janice.”

  She related briefly the events, mentioning only that she had been talking to Packard when Hughes came out and pulled a gun on them, and then something like smoke appeared in the hallway, and she thought the house had caught fire. She wasn’t sure what happened next except that some shooting started, and, when she came to her senses, Packard had run outside.

  “Hell, why don’t you tell the truth?” Hughes growled, still holding the bloody handkerchief to his scalp wound. “I came out and caught that bastard with his pants down, and pulled a gun to keep him from violating your wife.”

  “I was just treating his injuries,” Janice interrupted, turning on Hughes.

  “Yeah, you were getting ready to give him a treat, all right,” Hughes sniffed.

  “The only way I could keep your hands off me would be to break both your arms,” Janic
e said between clenched teeth, her eyes blazing.

  “O K, O K, enough of that,” Kinealy broke in, secretly wishing he had left Janice behind in Chicago. Apparently she was up to her old tricks, and two of his own men were competing for her attentions behind his back. He had broken his own long-standing rule of not involving her in his business dealings and was now paying the price for it. Although careful to veil his thoughts behind half-closed eyes, he bitterly blamed her for the troubles that had developed between these two men. “Do you know anything more about Packard?” he asked Janice.

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t know why he ran off.”

  “Hell, he was shooting at Lincoln’s ghost,” McGuinn stated. “Then you came down the stairs, boss, and I thought he was shooting at you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Kinealy asked, with rising irritation. It seemed his little group of conspirators were all going as crazy as Boston Corbett. Maybe their imaginations had been influenced by the creepy atmosphere of this musty old mansion. He probably shouldn’t have told them about the Hanrahans.

  McGuinn described what he had seen floating in the vapor, and the terrible groaning noise the head had emitted.

  Kinealy listened with growing skepticism, then turned to Hughes. “Did you see this ghost, too?”

  “Well...I saw something, but I don’t know what it was,” Hughes hedged. “Before I could get a good look, Packard clubbed me from behind.”

  “Hmm....” McGuinn was the most superstitious of the three, Kinealy thought. Somehow Packard had created some kind of distraction that had allowed him to get away. He took a deep breath and dismissed all this. “O K, as soon as I get dressed, we’re moving that coffin.”

  “What about Packard?” Hughes asked.

  “We’ll have to figure he’s going for the law. If he comes back here with them, we’ll just be innocent travelers who stopped here because we couldn’t afford a hotel. That’s our story for now. But I don’t want to have any contact with the law, if we can avoid it.”

  With that he picked his gun off the table and climbed the stairs.

  Fifteen minutes later the three men were carrying the coffin once again. Janice walked along beside them, holding the lantern high enough for Kinealy to see where he was going. She carried a shovel in her other hand. The three men slipped and stumbled on the uneven ground as Kinealy directed their steps north away from the house on a twisting, turning course into the hills. After they had struggled along for nearly twenty minutes, he found what he was looking for — a soft dirt bank about eight feet high that had been undercut by erosion.

  “Set ’er down right here,” he grunted and the men unburdened themselves. Kinealy was sweating in spite of the chilly night air, but he paid no attention to this as he took the shovel form his wife and began digging at the bank, caving it down over the canvas-covered coffin. Five minutes later, he handed the shovel to McGuinn. Finally Hughes took a turn, grumbling that manual labor was not the cure for a pounding headache.

  By the time they had finished, dawn was beginning to soften the darkness around them. Kinealy used the shovel to finish smoothing out the dirt, then directed McGuinn to break off some branches of a nearby bush and begin brushing out the obvious signs of their having been there. It was just light enough for them to see as Kinealy led them back to the house, more than a quarter mile away.

  “Stick here for now,” Kinealy told them a short time later as he led the other dun up to the front porch. The horse was saddled and bridled with gear he had found in the tack room. “I’m going to town. It’s risky, but I’ve got to get my telegraph message.” He swung into the saddle, then paused with a last thought. “If I’m not back by tonight, then something’s gone wrong. Don’t wait for me. Just walk out of here and get a steamboat or train ticket and scatter.” When they only stared at him, he asked: “Understand?”

  “Sure, boss,” McGuinn finally answered.

  Kinealy pulled the horse’s head around and kicked him into motion, wondering if he could hold all this together long enough to collect both the ransom and Ben Boyd.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Halfway to the jail, Packard thought of something that gave him some reason for hope. During his conversation with Detective Morgan in front of the telegrapher, he had never mentioned the names of any of the gang, or that they were sending and receiving coded messages at that Western Union office. If Kinealy showed up there today to pick up the latest response from his contact in Chicago, the telegrapher would have no way of knowing it was anything other than another customer on routine business. Maybe the police chief would listen to reason and send a few men to the Western Union office to apprehend Kinealy since Packard had no doubt he would be there today.

  “You didn’t bother to tell that telegrapher to keep his mouth shut about what he just heard,” Packard said over his shoulder to Cyrus Morgan who was walking at his back with his gun drawn.

  “No need. Those men who operate the key are like lawyers or priests...anything they hear or read is kept in confidence.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” he muttered.

  “It’s the next door on your right.”

  The police station and lock-up was a one-story red brick building on a corner with no sign to identify it. Packard opened the door and entered. The office smelled like old cigar smoke and coal oil. Just now the indigenous odors were being overridden by the smell of fresh coffee brewing in a black pot on a squat, potbellied stove on one side of the room.

  A big man swiveled around in his desk chair as the door opened. He had black hair and eyes and a thick mustache to match. Even his carefully brushed suit was black, relieved only by a white, collarless shirt, and a heavy gold watch chain, one end of which was threaded through a buttonhole of his coat, the other end disappearing into a side pocket. He was about six feet tall when he stood up, but appeared shorter because of his breadth.

  “Chief Durkee, I’ve got somebody here I think you’ll want to question,” Morgan said as Boston Corbett helped himself to a cup of coffee.

  “Oh?” The black brows went up.

  “I’m Sterling Packard of the U. S. Secret Service,” he said, extending his hand. Durkee took it automatically, throwing a questioning look at the tall detective.

  “That’s who he claims to be,” Morgan replied, holstering his gun, then slipping out Packard’s Colt and placing it on the police chief’s desk.

  Durkee motioned to one of two straight-backed wooden chairs. “Sit down and let’s talk. Want some coffee?” he added as an afterthought.

  Packard accepted gratefully, sensing that his getting in a frantic rush was not going to help matters. These men represented the law in St. Joe, no matter what he thought, so he gathered himself internally for the ordeal of convincing them.

  Corbett was nervously pacing around the office, throwing angry looks at Packard and muttering comments like — “Curse of Satan!” — and — “The Lord reserves hellfire for those who disturb the dead.”

  “Here. Go down to Missus Mabry’s boarding house and bring us some breakfast,” Durkee said, flipping him a five-dollar gold piece. “Enough for four.”

  Once Corbett was gone, Packard relaxed and warmed his hands and his insides with a tin cup of scalding brew. Then he started at the beginning and relayed everything that had happened since he’d infiltrated the gang. Morgan perched on one edge of the chief’s desk and listened. Durkee interrupted him only twice with questions that caused him to elaborate on points in his tale. Otherwise, he sat with hands clasped behind his head, leaning back in the swivel chair and regarding Packard with deep black eyes.

  When Packard finished, Durkee sat forward in his chair and was silent for several long seconds, absorbing it all. “Damnedest story I ever heard,” he finally said.

  “I swear to you, Chief Durkee, every word of it’s true.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Durkee got up from his chair and turned to the tall detective. “Round up Lawson and Peters. They’re on n
ight patrol somewhere in town. Take the paddy wagon out to the old Hanrahan place in the hills. Tell them to be prepared for anything.” He took a ring of keys from his desk drawer and went to a gun rack on a side wall. “They better take this besides their side arms.” He unlocked the rack and took down a double-barreled shotgun and handed it to Morgan, along with a box of shells from the desk drawer. Pulling a heavy gold watch from his side coat pocket, he popped open the case. “Bender and McNeil will be on duty in a few minutes. I’ll send them over to Riley’s saloon.”

  “Right, chief.” Morgan took the shotgun and shells and started out the door.

  “You better have somebody at the Western Union office to intercept Kinealy when he shows up,” Packard said.

  “I give the orders around here,” Durkee snapped. When the door slammed behind Morgan, Durkee said: “The four men I mentioned are my entire force. We’ll get to Western Union, but first things first.”

  “It may be too late by then.”

  “When we do go to the telegraph office, it will be to send a wire to the Chicago office of the Secret Service.” He dipped a steel-nibbed pen into a brass ink pot on the desk and handed it to Packard. “Write down the name and address of where you want the message sent. We’ll not only find out if they have a Sterling Packard working on this case for them, but we’ll also get a physical description of that man to see if it fits you.”

  Packard scratched out the name and address of his boss on a pad of paper. Just as he finished writing, the door opened and Corbett entered, carrying a wicker basket.

  “Set it on the desk, and help yourself,” Durkee said to the preacher.

  “You still don’t believe me,” Packard said, his stomach rumbling with hunger as Corbett flipped back the red checked napkin covering the basket, releasing a variety of delicious aromas.

  “I’ve got an open mind. When you’ve been in police work as long as I have, you learn not to jump to any conclusions,” Durkee replied evenly. “I’m not charging you with anything at the moment, but I’ll have to detain you while we check your story. Hand me that holster rig and then step on back to one of those cells, and I’ll bring your breakfast.”