The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

  He said, “You know right well.”

  And she did. She raised her face to his and closed her eyes.

  He brought his mouth to hers in an exquisite kiss.

  And there came the expected responses … the deep breaths, the deeper breaths, the momentary pauses, the meeting gazes, the touching hands, the twining hands, the roving hands … hers to his collar, to his neck, to the buttons across the front of his uniform … his along her smooth uncorseted back and down to the hooped crinolines of her skirt, protection for her and for him, too, since her skirt saved her from feeling the most obvious of his responses.

  So he was shocked and embarrassed when she whispered, “What’s this hard thing spoiling the line of your uniform?”

  Then he realized that she was feeling the diary in his breast pocket.

  As he told her it was his daybook, she slid her hand so that somehow the book lifted from the inner pocket, and he felt it slip across the front of his uniform, out between the single row of buttons, and then, to his shock, it flopped onto the floor.

  She looked down. “Your daybook?” She leaned closer, squinting in the half light behind the pillar. “But a name is written there, on the endpaper. It says, ‘A. Lincoln.’”

  Halsey snatched up the book, shoved it back into his inner pocket.

  She whispered, “That looked like Lincoln’s very own hand.”

  “I admire the man. I asked him for his signature.”

  Her eyes narrowed. He expected another question about the diary. Instead she said, “You admire the man? Is that what you told my uncle?”

  “No. I didn’t think that was something your uncle wanted to hear.”

  “But you said what you had to in order to spend time with me?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Well”—her smile invited another kiss—“that’s what I wanted to hear.”

  So he kissed her, first on the lips, then on the cheek, and then, with an exquisite inhalation of her scent, on the side of her neck.

  And she whispered, “Write today’s events in your daybook, sir, in red letters.”

  Just then, there was a commotion at the end of the gallery. A group of officers and their wives was arriving with Dr. Henry himself, director of the Smithsonian.

  The two young people scurried off.

  * * *

  Return the diary. Return the diary. Return the diary.

  That became Halsey’s only thought after he had escorted Constance back to the Willard. The sooner the diary was out of his possession, the better.

  So he hurried up Fifteenth Street, along the pillared side of the Treasury Building and reached the Pennsylvania Avenue corner just as an open carriage came rattling along.

  It carried the president in his stovepipe and a tiny woman in a black dress, black bonnet, and black veil.

  Mary Todd Lincoln turned her face toward him. And Halsey saw a visage of inexpressible sorrow, a mother who had lost a child just six weeks earlier.

  Before that awful event, an afternoon carriage ride had been part of the daily routine for the Lincolns, a small escape from the White House. If this was her first ride since then, Halsey could not intrude. So he did not call out.

  The little woman turned away. The president whispered something in her ear. The carriage rolled north onto New York Avenue.

  Halsey stood there a moment, wondering what to do. An appearance in the War Department, four hours before his shift began, would arouse far too much suspicion. So he returned to the National Hotel.

  * * *

  It had been a good day, all things considered. He had eaten well at the Willard. He had enjoyed a kiss from a young woman who had been smiling in his daydreams for weeks. And he had kept the diary safe, if not entirely secret. All that remained before he returned to the War Department was a bit more sleep.

  But the note under his pillow—Look elsewhere for what you seek—had been replaced with this:

  Today, the president told Major Eckert that he had lost his daybook, with notes and addresses. He believed that he left it in the telegraph office. Is that what you were stuffing into your pocket this morning?

  Halsey felt his mouth go dry again. McNealy had been there. McNealy was on to him.

  He poured himself a glass of water and took a swallow. He would have to think. But he needed a bit more sleep to think clearly. So he put the diary under the pillow. Then he stripped off his uniform and opened the wardrobe.

  And a hand burst through the hanging suits and shirts. The hand held a pistol. The pistol pressed against Halsey’s forehead.

  Then a face appeared from the folds of fabric within the wardrobe. Halsey could not make out features, except for a bushy black beard. “Hands up, gentle cuz.”

  Before Halsey could react, something crashed down on the back of his head.…

  * * *

  When he awoke, the room was dark. He had a lump the size of a grapeshot on his skull. He staggered to his feet and grabbed for his watch. Gone.

  He reached for his pistol. Gone.

  For his wallet. Gone.

  He stumbled over to the bed, took a deep breath, and reached under the pillow for the diary. Gone.

  He perched on the edge of the bed and put his throbbing head in his hands. He tried not to vomit as he remembered the words “gentle cuz.”

  That son of a bitch.

  He threw on his civilian suit. He reached under the wardrobe, where he had taped a second Adams pistol. His father had given him a matched pair as a gift. He holstered it and left.

  At the hotel telegraph office, he wired his father:

  NEED FUNDS. SEND DRAFT AUTHORIZATION, HH.

  His father would not question. Since Halsey’s return from Ball’s Bluff, the elder Hutchinson had grown warmer, more paternal, more willing to see to the needs of a young man who had demonstrated both courage and responsibility. Halsey lived frugally and still had some money in a Washington bank, but this robbery had severely depleted him.

  Then he hurried to the Willard, cursing his sense of responsibility as he went. He had taken the diary because he thought that protecting it was the right thing to do. Now, he had lost it, with what consequences for Lincoln and the Union, he could not imagine.

  He had half an hour to find his stupid cousin, confront him, and get on to work. He could not report late to the War Department. Major Eckert insisted on punctuality. And Halsey had always been punctual. If he reported late, suspicions would rise.

  At the Willard, he passed quickly through the lobby bar but did not see John Charles. So he followed the sound of the harp to the dining room and peered in.

  Jester the waiter was approaching with a tray of dirty dishes. “Evenin’, sir. Mr. Congressman Wood ain’t here if that’s who you lookin’ for.”

  “I’m looking for a tall man in a checkered suit. Fond of quoting Shakespeare and acting like he’s British.”

  “I think I know who you speakin’ of, sir, but I ain’t seen him.” Then Jester scurried on to the kitchen.

  Halsey took the stairs three flights to his cousin’s room and knocked. No answer. So he tried the door, and it swung slowly open.

  He peered into the darkened room. It was similar to his own in the National: long and narrow, a single window, bed to the left, wardrobe against the wall to the right.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the faint light. Then Halsey noticed that the wardrobe was open. But he was puzzled. There seemed to be a dark mass hanging from the door.

  He stepped in, stepped closer to the mass, and felt his insides wither.

  The mass had a head … and a body.

  Halsey pulled out a box of matches and struck one.

  And though he had seen many horrors at Ball’s Bluff, what he saw in the match light sickened him. The head had a face, but just barely. The face had eyes, but just barely. The eyes had been pounded until they resembled large, ripe, purple grapes. Blood dripped in long saliva strings from the spaces where the teeth had been. It r
an down the front of the waistcoat, down along the trousers, down to the tops of the expensive boots.

  Halsey touched the hand, then brought his ear to the bloody mouth. The hand was ice, and the mouth offered not a whisper of breath. The belt around the neck suspended the body and cut so deep into the flesh that blood was seeping through the notches.

  Halsey felt the fried oysters rising in his throat. He backed out into the hallway. He closed the door. He looked up and down and saw no one. He heard in the distance the whooshing and snorting of the steam elevator. He took the stairs instead.

  * * *

  That night, the soldiers defied their curfew and sang their songs of joy … or of drunkenness … or of whore-sated debauchery.…

  They were passing the windows of the War Department, moving west, toward the camps by the river. They were singing the new lyrics to “John Brown’s Body.”

  Halsey wondered briefly if he could give out with a “Glory hallelujah!” But he had other things to worry about. Then he sensed movement.

  “More singin’,” said Lincoln.

  Halsey glanced at the clock: 1 A.M. “You’re up late, sir.”

  “Up late … puzzlin’, frettin’.”

  Bates had gone off to the privy, so the president and Halsey were alone.

  Lincoln said, “Did you happen to find a daybook on the major’s desk last night?”

  Halsey had turned over in his head what he would say to that. It might be better for the president to think that he had lost the book on the White House grounds. It might afford him a bit more peace of mind than the truth: that it had been stolen by men who were probably looking for other things. And more important, the lie might give Halsey the time to find it.

  So he lied. And he hoped that his face did not redden.

  “Well,” said Lincoln, “I’ve thought long and hard about where I might have left it and I have to say, I’m down to the raisins.”

  THREE

  Saturday Morning

  Evangeline wanted to read her book: Reveille in Washington, the 1942 Pulitzer Prize winner by Margaret Leech, about a city that was almost always in peril between 1861 and 1865.

  But her new lobbyist friend had followed her onto the train and hadn’t stopped talking yet.

  Evangeline took the window seat and pulled out her book. Kathi Morganti dropped her laptop bag on the aisle seat and stowed her things.

  Evangeline hoped that any woman in a pinstripe suit and pageboy, riding the power corridor on a Saturday morning, would have better things to do than chitchat. But Kathi sat down and said, “You know my mother wanted something distinctive, so she named me Kathi with an i. But there’s nothing more distinctive than ‘Evangeline.’”

  “Thanks.” Evangeline opened the book to the part about the D.C. Emancipation. The reaction of the Washington Board of Aldermen had amazed her. She had even underlined it: “We urge Congress to offer safeguards against turning this city into an asylum for free Negroes, a population undesirable in every American community.”

  For Evangeline, educating herself about the Civil War had also been an education in the history of American racism.

  But Kathi kept talking. “What do they call you for short?”

  “They don’t.”

  Kathi raised a brow, as if to say, Oh, a snob who prefers to be left alone.

  Evangeline didn’t want her thinking that, at least not the snob part. She was going to be sitting next to this woman for three hours. Best keep it friendly. So she added. “Ever since I was a girl, people have tried to call me Eve, Evie, Vange, Vangie, Angie—”

  “I like Evie.” Kathi warmed up again.

  “—but it’s always been Evangeline. My mother liked the poem by Longfellow. ‘This is the forest primeval.’ And so on.”

  “You don’t hear that name too often, ‘Evangeline.’ It’s very nineteenth century. Perfect name for somebody doing a series on the Civil War.”

  And though she didn’t want to keep talking, Evangeline had to ask, “How did you hear about the series? Press release? E-mail blast? Tweet? What?”

  Kathi leaned closer. “I’m a lobbyist at Hamill and Associates. We work on tax policy, health care, energy issues … and we do a lot of work for nonprofits, like museums, colleges, historical organizations. So I keep my ear to the ground, which means that every History Network press release shows up on my computer.”

  Just then, a conductor stepped into the front and announced, “This is the quiet car! No cell phones, no music, and no loud conversations. Tickets, please!”

  Kathi said, “We’d better shut up.”

  Thank God, thought Evangeline.

  “But let me buy you coffee once we leave Philly,” said Kathi.

  * * *

  An hour or so later, they were sitting in the café car, drinking Green Mountain, the Amtrak house brand. Evangeline was having a blueberry muffin, Kathi a cheese Danish. The morning sunlight was streaming in the east windows, flickering and strobing as the train passed trees, telegraph poles, and bridge abutments. So they’d both put on their sunglasses. Evangeline wore wraparound Ray-Bans. Kathi wore Prada. Evangeline’s did the job. Kathi’s did, too, and announced that she could afford Prada.

  And she could. When she wasn’t looking, Evangeline had Googled her and learned that Hamill and Associates had billings in excess of $25 million a year.

  The founder, Suzanne Hamill, had been a two-term congresswoman from Maryland whose legislative specialty had been tax policy. The other partners came from power centers all around the Beltway. Kathi had begun as a staffer for a New York congressman on the House Appropriations Committee.

  Kathi took a bite of Danish. “You are one of my heroines.”

  “Heroines? Me? Why?”

  “The way you handled your wedding.”

  Evangeline stared through her sunglasses. First the scene in the Amtrak lounge, then the chitchat about her TV show … now the wedding that wasn’t. She was starting to feel a little creeped out. Her wedding—or lack of it—was not fodder for her friends and certainly not for strangers. “How do you know about that?”

  Kathi said, “Well, there was a lot on the Boston gossip pages, you know.”

  “Do I ever.”

  “And once your TV project was on our radar, any reference to you popped up—”

  “With little notes, I imagine—” Evangeline took a sip of coffee. “—like, ‘Oh, hey, here’s how to do a wedding when you’ve decided you don’t want to get married.’”

  “I have two wonderful kids.” Kathi tapped a button on her iPad and a pair of smiling little boys popped up on the screen.

  “Very nice,” said Evangeline.

  “But—” Kathi slipped off the sunglasses to show her sincerity, and the flickering light also showed the mid-forties crow’s-feet. “—somewhere between the time the invitations go out and the vows are taken, a lot of girls figure out that they’re making a big mistake, and—”

  “That’s not quite how it happened with Peter and me.”

  “Peter Fallon. The antiquarian, right?”

  “You know about him, too?”

  Kathi put on the sunglasses again. “As I said, our firm represents a lot of institutions. Colleges seeking funds will try to establish the importance of a new building by putting something important into it, like a Shakespeare folio or a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, and your former boyfriend—”

  “Current boyfriend.”

  “Oh, you stayed friends,” said Kathi. “That’s nice.”

  Evangeline just stared and let this Kathi Morganti keep talking:

  “Sometimes Peter Fallon may compete with one of our clients. Sometimes he collaborates. So he pops up in our research briefings, too. Some coincidence.”

  Was it? Evangeline was beginning to wonder. She said, “You’re very thorough.”

  “It’s part of the job,” said Kathi. “Lobbying is all about connections, about knowing the right people, and if you don’t know them, knowing the rig
ht people to tell you who the right people are. Your boyfriend is one of the right people’s right people.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to know that.”

  “I mean it, sincerely, and in this business, being sincere is almost as good as knowing the right people.”

  “Sincere … I’ll drink to that.” Evangeline brought her cup to her lips just as a man entered the car and walked past them. She noticed him because everything about him was designed to impress: ramrod posture, silver hair pushed straight back, porcelain white skin, white shirt, black suit, silver and black tie, a half-smile that proclaimed confidence rather than happiness.

  When he ordered coffee, the deep voice gave him away: New York Democratic Congressman Max Milbury. He had been representing an upstate district for years and was facing his first November challenge in a decade.

  Evangeline turned back to Kathi. “Hey, that’s—”

  Kathi was shoving the last of her Danish into her mouth. “Time to get back.”

  But before they could clear out, Milbury was standing over them with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand.

  “Ms. Morganti,” he said, “I hope you haven’t followed me onto the train.”

  “You flatter yourself, Congressman.”

  He looked down from under those gray eyebrows. “Usually it’s the lobbyists doing the flattering.”

  Kathi Morganti smiled, a tight rictus that said a lot without saying a word. Evangeline had seen that smile on a lot of female faces in the business world. The woman who did not want to cause controversy, or make a scene, or destroy an opportunity in the presence of an obnoxious male colleague often … simply … smiled.

  We both know you’re an asshole, but I’m smiling. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than talk to you, but I’m smiling. Nothing you say will change my mind about you, but I’m smiling.

  The train rocked slightly, causing the coffee in the congressman’s cup to slosh. Most people put lids on their cups. This looked to Evangeline like a liquid threat.

  “Shouldn’t you be spending the weekend kissing babies in Albany?” said Kathi. “Considering the polls?”

  “I never trust the polls.” Milbury could give a shit-eating grin as good as he got. “In that respect, polls are like lobbyists.”