Girl in Disguise

by Greer Macallister

  When we took her by surprise, Mrs. Greenhow attempted to swallow a coded message, but Pinkerton was able to grab it from her before she succeeded. The team was quick and surgical. They knew where everything was, so they were able to retrieve it in full view. They took her maps from the top shelf of the library and her cipher translation key from the drawer of the desk in the study. If I’d only managed to pick that lock the first time, I began thinking but cut myself off before I could finish the thought. Instead, I reached for DeForest’s hand and squeezed it, and he stood by me, knowing only a fraction of what I was feeling but knowing enough.

  Taylor came down from upstairs with Greenhow’s diary in hand, and she tore herself free from the agent restraining her long enough to swipe his face with her nails. She even drew a bit of blood. But he laughed instead of cringing, infuriating her. We all knew this was the least blood that she had drawn, and hers in turn would be forfeit when the extent of her crimes came to light.

  Like Mrs. Greenhow, I stayed silent during the entire enterprise. Hours later, once the arrest was complete and she was in custody, I had one more thing to say to Pinkerton.

  Inside, I was burning with fury and grief; I did everything I could to keep both emotions out of my voice, making myself a creature of logic for him. Logic was always the hardest thing for him to say no to.

  Arms folded, I said, “I want to interrogate her.”

  “Not necessary. We have enough to hang her regardless. Her testimony is beside the point.”

  “The point is different for me. Do I need to remind you?”

  His voice was warm and fatherly, and it almost undid me. “It won’t help. Will it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will it bring him back?”

  “Don’t be cruel.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled downward.

  “I know it won’t,” I admitted, but I did not soften my stance. “I just want to see his killer punished. I’m shocked to see you might stand in the way of justice like that.”

  “I’m not trying to protect her. I’m trying to protect you.”

  “Like you protected me when you sent Tim to Richmond?”

  “That wasn’t about you.”

  Now, my anger was threatening to slip its chains. “Like hell it wasn’t.”

  “Warne, I don’t know what I can do to convince you.”

  “You can’t,” I said flatly. “What you can do is sign an order for me to go visit Mrs. Greenhow. My identity could be revealed at any moment, and I’ll be useless here in Washington. Let me see her, and then let me go free.”

  “You’ve always been free.”

  “Have I?”

  “Warne,” he said, his voice weary. “I don’t want to fight with you. I want you to heal.”

  “I don’t know if I ever will,” I said, “and that’s the truth.”

  “I know. I know what it looks like when you lie.”

  “So you understand that when I say I need you to let me see her, my very life depends on it.”

  He sized me up in a long gaze that I refused to meet, knowing there could be pity in it. I couldn’t stand to see him pity me. But he saw my resolve. “Yes. I understand.”

  “And?”

  “Bring me a pen.”

  • • •

  The Old Capitol Prison, like the nation it served, was divided. The top half of the largest building was naked brick, but from the central line down to the ground, it was whitewashed. Long, low outbuildings, also white, flanked the square prison yard. It seemed quieter and more civilized than Castle Thunder, but I knew I was a biased observer. The difference was that in Castle Thunder, I had braved terror to see my friend, while at Old Capitol, I would flinch at no wrong as long as it was being done to my enemy.

  They brought me to the door of the room and ushered me in. It was only a normal door, a normal room. No bars, no cages. She even had a window, with a view down to the street. The sun was so bright outside and the room so dark, I could see only her outline, but I knew her shape by now.

  “Another lady to see you,” said the young soldier.

  Even before my eyes adjusted to the light, I knew Rose by her voice, as she instantly rejoined, “Her? She’s no lady.”

  I stepped into the room and signaled to the young soldier to leave us. After a short hesitation, he did.

  Mrs. Greenhow turned and saw me, and cold fury warped her features. “You shanty fast trick,” she said. “Conniving bitch.”

  It wouldn’t do to fly off the handle. If I used anger later in my dealings with her, it needed to be deliberate. I surveyed the room to delay my answer. The lady herself wore a fine gown, deep-blue silk with a skirt as broad as a bell, the same one she had worn that morning when I saw her carted off. Behind her was a bench. To my horror, I saw that a small figure was sitting on the bench, and she too was dressed for a parlor, not a prison.

  “Little Rose,” I said. “I did not think to see you here. Are you well?”

  “Don’t speak to her,” snapped her mother. “Cover your ears, Rose.”

  The little girl complied. I wished she were gone from the room, but if this would be my only chance to speak with Mrs. Greenhow, I could not beat around the bush.

  The spy went on, “Speak to me, if you must. And I imagine you think you must. Lapdog of the Union law. Whose are you? Whose dog?”

  “No one’s.”

  “We are all someone’s dog, I suppose,” she said. “Even me.”

  “I would not say that.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You never say anything untoward. You never say anything at all.”

  “Madam, I say a great deal.”

  “Empty words and outright lies. You said you were my friend.”

  “As you said you were mine.”

  She said, “But only one of us was lying about everything. Annie Armstrong. That’s not your name, is it? I’d bet you’re not even married to that man you said is your husband.”

  “Was.”

  “What?”

  Despite my best efforts, my voice broke as I spoke the words I had not yet had to say out loud. “Was my husband. You killed him.”

  “I did not.” She appeared genuinely surprised to hear the accusation, her denial sincere, but I would expect nothing less from her than complete perfection in her lies.

  “You did. You told someone you suspected he was a spy, and they found him in Richmond, and they hanged him.”

  She folded her arms. “Of course I suspected him. And yes, I reported it. But I didn’t have him killed. When you told me he’d been called to a base in Mississippi, that was the last news I gave my handler, because that’s all I knew. I liked Armstrong, whoever he really was. Why would I do such a thing?”

  “Because you’re our sworn enemy. Because we are powerful agents for good, and you can’t stand that.”

  “Good?” She laughed, throwing her hands up. “All you mudsills believe yourselves saints. It’s disgusting. At least I know I am a sinner.”

  “And now the world will know. I’d like to give you the chance to confess your wrongs.”

  “Oh, are you a priest now too?”

  “Not that kind of confession.”

  “You’ll have no hope of either kind. I know when to keep my mouth shut.”

  “You seem to have gotten quite far by opening it. Among other things.”

  She bristled. “I did what I needed to do for my country. So did you. What’s the difference between us?”

  “I don’t drag my child down into the darkness with me.” I pointed at Little Rose, still with her hands over her ears, patiently following her mother’s command.

  “Don’t you dare.” Leaning forward, she brandished her finger at me, her cold fury growing hot. “I love my daughter. I’m trying to make a world where she can be happy.”

  “I t
hink the happiest of all were the men you seduced.”

  “Shut your mouth. Shut it right now.”

  “If you can’t bear to hear things told aloud, I wonder that you could bear to do them in the first place.”

  “You disgust me,” she said, her voice a strangled shout. “Get out. I always knew there was something wrong with you; loneliness rises from you like a stench.”

  It was the truest thing she said, and it hurt more than anything else. I wanted to sob from the wound, but that was also what she wanted, so I had to deny her.

  I cried plenty, back in my room, Tim’s discarded socks still in the corner and the ashes of my father’s burnt-up telegrams in the fireplace.

  I would get no satisfaction from Rose Greenhow. She remained in the Old Capitol Prison, along with her poor daughter, awaiting trial. I desperately wanted to see her hanged with my own two eyes, but even in wartime, our justices insisted on process to fight off the madness. It could be months before she was brought to justice and sentenced for her crimes. I would have to content myself with her imprisonment for now.

  I knew I could not stay. I would drive myself insane being in the same city with her, knowing she lived and breathed, waiting for the hammer to fall at last. Nor did I want to stay here for my father’s wrath, whatever form it would take. I wanted him to come and find me gone, cursing himself for letting me slip through his fingers. No money, no daughter, no victim. He taught me the world was all winners and marks, so let him recognize himself as the mark for once.

  But I did not know where to go. Chicago was my place of employment, and I didn’t want to be employed there anymore. I had no home. No Tim, and no home.

  I lay on my bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, wondering if maybe a jump into the swift-running James River would have been the best way to solve my problems after all.

  Instead, I retrieved my horse from the stable and packed my saddlebags with a few of Annie Armstrong’s belongings, leaving the rest behind. Pinkerton, or rather E. J. Allen, would come and clean up after me, I knew. I would leave him the mess. He had certainly left me one.

  Riding for hours while the air grew colder and the sky darker, I bore due west until both the horse and I were exhausted. The country slipped past me, unobserved, while I kept my eyes only on the road ahead of me, without knowing where it was leading. I stopped for the night and rested. In the morning, we started again. I repeated the process until one night we stopped in St. Louis, and I knew anywhere after that would be frontier. I sold the horse. From here, I would stick to stagecoaches and trains, safer ways to travel. Without the protection of a roof over my head, closing my eyes to sleep west of the Mississippi was an act too foolhardy even for me.

  That night, I stayed in a small roadside inn owned by a Polish couple, and I nearly wept when the wife served me a bowl of buttered potato dumplings smothered in onions, the first pierogi I’d seen since I’d left Mrs. Borowski’s boardinghouse. My path finally came clear. I would head for the Dakota Territory and wouldn’t stop until I reached Bright Hope.

  Mrs. Borowski was surprised to see me, to say the least. Eventually, I told her what had happened, though the telling of it was interrupted by tears and wailing and several sunsets. She had found a place for herself among the miners and frontiersmen. It seemed strange, in such a wild place, but I envied her comfort. The life clearly suited her, and the shaggy, unkempt men who pulled their chairs up to her table for the evening meal did so with quiet grace. She had obviously had an effect on them. The dinner included pasties, meat-and-vegetable pies in a delicious crust, which the Cornish miners especially seemed to appreciate, leaving nary a crumb behind. All told, her dinner guests were more polite and mannerly than many of those I’d observed in Washington. Civilization, I told myself, was not what it used to be.

  She waved me away from helping to clean up after dinner but invited me for a tumbler of plum wine once the dishes were cleared. I gladly accepted. She told me I could stay as long as I liked and did not press me for answers. That was good, since I had none.

  The Dakota Territory was like nowhere I had ever been, which helped tremendously. It felt like the war was a world away. I came to love the wild hills, the miles of open space. I even loved the unrelenting brownness of everything. Brown dirt, brown clothes, brown buildings. Only the wide-open sky was blue and gray.

  And for a while, I found a way to live. It wasn’t the life I wanted, and most days, I didn’t recognize myself, but it was something.

  After a few weeks, I didn’t wake up panting in the middle of the night, seeing Tim’s dead body swaying from the gallows, deathly afraid my father would find and reveal me, even in this hamlet. I fumbled my way toward some small amount of peace, however fleeting, however small.

  Unfortunately, that was just when I was found.

  I had spent the day looking for work. My salary had added up to a pretty penny, but I wanted to keep my hands off it as long as possible. I would be easy to trace if I started communicating with the bank in my own name. I should have set up an account with another alias, one I had never used on a case, but I’d left in too much of a hurry. So I had gone around offering my services as a shop clerk, a bookkeeper, anything I felt I could do without needing to truly reveal the depths of myself. For a while, I wanted to be a woman without depths.

  As I entered the lobby of the only hotel in town, I was looking forward to another night of falling asleep shortly after sunset, two fingers of brandy aiding my journey toward Morpheus. Alas, it was not to be.

  “There she is now,” said the hotel clerk, and the man waiting at the counter stirred and turned toward me with a look of expectation.

  It was too late for me to run, and in any case, I wasn’t sure what the right reaction was. I thought I had already run far enough. I thought even if he looked for me—and why would he?—there was little chance he would find me. But I should have known there was no point in hiding from the world’s greatest private investigator.

  The man in front of me, travel-worn and determined, was Allan Pinkerton.

  I wanted to fall upon his broad chest crying, and I also wanted to cringe away from him like a disobedient dog. In a way, it was a relief. Now that he was here, I didn’t have to fear his arrival. This new life I had begun to assemble was no kind of life. I was only wasting time. Of course he had come.

  “Upstairs,” I said quietly, not caring what the clerk must think. The rules were different on the frontier. Besides, now that I had been found, I doubted I’d be staying much longer.

  But the weeks I had been here had made one thing abundantly clear. Whatever my feelings toward Pinkerton, I missed my life as an operative. I missed the feeling of being useful, of puzzling out an answer to a crucial question. I missed mattering. Now that he was back, perhaps that was on offer again, and even before we got to the door of my room, I had to hold myself back from throwing myself on his mercy. But I knew begging him to welcome me back was an insult to both of us. Everything had gone so wrong between us. I wasn’t sure any of our former ease could ever be recovered.

  I brought him inside and shut the door. He took off his coat—he was always more comfortable in his shirtsleeves, and the room was warm—and sat down in the chair. I perched on the very edge of the bed, ankles crossed neatly. The memory of the last conversation among him, Tim, and me hung so heavy in the air, I kept running my fingers across the bedspread beside me, hoping against hope to feel the solid warm bulk of Tim there next to me. But he would never be there again.

  My melancholy made me abrupt. “Why are you here?”

  “I came to give you the news,” he said, twisting his hat in his hand. “I thought you should hear it from me. It won’t be in the papers.”

  I knew immediately he spoke of Mrs. Greenhow. Nothing else, not even the daily movements of the war, could interest me. I hadn’t gone near a newspaper since I’d arrived in town. There was nothing I wan
ted to know. “Hanged, I hope?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “They sent her back,” he said.

  I felt as if the floor of the hotel had fallen away underneath my feet and there was no longer anything solid in the world to stand on. Loss was the first feeling. The second was fury. My blood boiled. I struggled to find words besides profanities to express myself, but there were none. I leapt up. “That’s all? No punishment? Nothing?”

  “The exile was the punishment.”

  “Sent home? To the country she loves, where she’ll be hailed as a hero? That’s disgusting!”

  “Kate.”

  “I’ll go stab her in the gut myself,” I said, “and I am not kidding.” There was no room to pace, but I did it anyway, my fury too strong to stay in one place.

  “I know you’re not.” He remained in the chair, looking up at me. “But, Warne, the last thing we need is for you to die too.”

  “Oh, is that the last thing we need?” I snarled at him, letting the full force of my anger loose at last. “Because I wouldn’t mind it. I’m ready. Let’s just call the game what it is. My life is a failure. The man I love is dead, probably because of me. Or maybe,” I said, suddenly bold, “because of you.”

  “Me?”

  I put my hands on the arms of his chair and leaned down into his face. “You sent him there. Because he told you we were engaged to be married. You saw we were in love, and you had to stop that. You had to take that away from us.”

  “That was not my intent.”

  I could not read his expression.

  “Regardless of your intent. Or mine. If things had been different, if I hadn’t loved him and you hadn’t hated him…” I pulled away, pacing again.

  “I didn’t hate him! He was my best man.”