Jesse smiled and unlatched the gate. He looked both ways before stepping into the street, even though the road lay bare for as far as the eye could see. “Son, there aren’t many ways for a man to get that sum of cash, especially after the war. It wasn’t like they could hoard it for years. They were in a prison camp of all places.”
Grant nodded. The men would have had to earn the money in the short time between the end of the war and now, six months at best. He’d received the spoils of victory from the country, but that was different. He’d been proclaimed a hero and the victor. These men had been trapped in Andersonville, a place that few people in the North wanted to think about. Outside of the military and the men who had been there, many people didn’t even know about the lethal prison camp in Southwestern Georgia. Indifferent guards who paid no heed to the needs of the infirm had run Andersonville. As the wounds of the war began to heal, memories like those needed to be put behind the country. The Henry Wirz trial would end soon and Grant had no doubt that the Butcher of Andersonville would be found guilty of war crimes.
Andersonville held no place for industry and wealth. Anyone with money would have bribed his way out of those plank walls. That meant the money had come after the war, after the end of the fighting. That sum of cash was the wages of the gunrunners and blockade runners made, not infantry.
Jesse started back to the Halleys home. He had a purpose in his step that Grant recognized from his youth. Jesse had a mission. “Son, I hate to tell you this about your friend, but there’s only two ways to get that kind of cash. One is to steal it, and the other is the government, which is just another method of thievery in most cases.”
Grant frowned as he tried to keep step with his father, the same man who dragged his feet to church socials. “Steal it?”
“There was a lot of anarchy in the South after the war. Train tracks were tore up, banks looted, and currency worthless. It would be an ideal time to pillage and not be caught. It could be years before someone makes heads or tails of the mess of their banking system, and even then who would know what had really happened to all that money?”
“I just can’t see them stealing money.” Grant shook his head. He couldn’t believe that his school possums would resort to thievery. The military should have taught them respect for institutions and authority.
Jesse cleared his throat and looked towards his son. “There is another explanation, but I don’t know how you’ll feel about hearing this tale out of me.”
“What? I just don’t see how they could have come across the money legally. It isn’t possible.”
“There’s one place in the South that had plenty of gold, Richmond. Old Jeff Davis left town with a boxcar full of gold. Stories go that no one knows persactly what happened to it.”
Grant sighed and shook his head. “Not rumors about lost Confederate gold. I can’t tell you how many men I had to discipline just after the war for wasting time looking for that.”
Jesse laughed. “Just like you, Ulys, to think of a treasure in practical terms. The fact remains that no one has seen hide or hair of that money since it left Richmond. My sources told me that it passed through Georgia. Maybe the Andersonville boys found it and helped themselves. After what they went through, I wouldn’t blame them an iota.”
Grant shrugged as he thought back to May of this year. The end of the war had brought chaos to the South. The Confederate tender had been worthless. The price of gold wasn’t much better. Davis had paid the troops who guarded him with some of the gold, but the temptation to take it all had to be great. Men with guns did as they pleased when order was lacking. The overriding fear of the government officials was that the Federals would be harsh in punishing the traitors. Some men had just gone home to wait. Jeff Davis had supposedly donned a dress to try to outwit his pursuers. Breckinridge and Butler had escaped to Cuba in tiny boats. In a situation like that, anything could have happened to the missing gold. His own troops had tried to locate the loot. Reported sightings of the money had ranged from Valdosta and Savannah to Lake Okeechobee of Florida. It was a lot of territory to cover at a time when troops were needed to battle Confederate skirmishes and a brewing crisis in Mexico. Still the gold would be helpful in getting the country back on track fiscally. Old Salmon Chase had printed all those greenbacks without the gold to back them.
“I know the rumors. I heard all about them in Washington. The gold is gone. Jeff Davis’ papers were buried somewhere. It’s all out there, but you’re telling me that five men from Bethel, Ohio found the gold and brought it back here.”
Jesse smiled. “Do you have a better explanation for what happened? I can’t think of nary a one.”
Grant looked at his father. He wouldn’t come up with another explanation now that Jesse had proposed this one. The idea had become a termite, boring into his brain. Once inside, it only pushed deeper. “I can’t think of one, but it just can’t be.”
Jesse started walking down the road again. “Well, there’s one way to find out. We can ask them.”
Grant stopped short. This trip with his father was going to drive him to drink. And sadly, Bethel had gone dry just after Jesse left the mayoral office. Grant frequently wondered about cause and effect. He mentally cursed that he couldn’t have grown up in a larger city where a man could get lost and inebriated if he wanted. In small towns like this, the shadow of his mother Hannah fell far. “You’re just going to march in and ask one of those men if they took the Confederate gold?”
Jesse shook his head and stepped up his pace. His father was never more animated than when thinking about money. The thought of a fortune would likely make him frantic. “We’re going to ask the widow. She’s the one most likely to tell us what we need to know.”
Chapter 5
Grant felt ill at ease inside the Halley house again. One of the boys had answered the door, black armband around his tiny bicep, and Grant’s heart broke trying to inquire after his mother. Hadn’t they lost enough already without interference from him? He steeled himself thinking that if Mrs. Halley knew about the gold, then she had willingly thrown little Jess to the wolves of suspicion in allowing people to think he stole those coins. The thought of his son’s good-natured face and easy-going disposition goaded him on.
For once, Jesse was silent. He allowed his son to do the talking. Grant knew that to the widow of a military man, the leader of the Federal army would cut a more imposing figure – even more so than the former mayor. Barring that, Grant would make a plea to their friendship from years gone by.
The widow stepped to the door. Grant couldn’t read any expression on her face. The thick black veil covered her eyes. He knew that he used his beard in the same way, hiding emotions between the reddish brown tendrils. Had she intentionally donned the veil to mask her feelings?
“General, what a surprise. How can I help you?” Her voice was huskier than he remembered it. He assumed that her grief was real and taking its toll on her.
Grant bowed at the waist and concentrated on what he and Jesse had practiced on the way over. “Well, ma’am. I was hoping to talk to you for a few. What with all the commotion around the funeral and all, I didn’t feel like I got to pay my proper respects. Why I don’t even know how Christopher passed on?”
The woman retreated a few steps. Her hands gripped themselves into fists. “For your information, Christopher did not pass on. He was murdered.”
It was Grant’s turn to take a step back, and he nearly toppled backward down the stairs into his father. Jesse steadied him with a hand on his back. “Murdered?”
The veil nodded. “Perhaps you should come inside, sir. We’d do best to not talk about this in front of the neighbors.” She held the door wide open and let the men pass.
What could she have meant? Grant had thought that his friend had passed away from natural causes. After all, the months in Andersonville had harmed his constitution. Starvation, disease, and dysentery were no friends to the humors. Even the sturdiest of frames couldn’t with
stand all of those things indefinitely. So how could this woman cry foul over Halley’s death? Grant suddenly forgot why he’d wanted to see the woman as he walked down the corridor, the same way he had two days ago when the family had just come to town.
The dining room was empty today, and the hollowness of the room was palpable. Even though he’d never seen Halley in the home, he felt the absence of the man. He’d always been the life of a party, and Grant could well imagine that his wife missed his laughter.
She stopped in the parlor and took a place on the high backed loveseat. The piece was ornate with a dark wood trim that ran around the edge of the upholstered back like a figure 8. She didn’t speak as Grant and Jesse settled themselves into chairs on the opposite side of a long squat table.
Jesse spoke first. “Mrs. Halley, did I hear you correctly? You said that your husband was kilt.” He leaned back in the chair like this was a business meeting more than an accusation of high crimes.
The woman nodded and began to weep quietly. Grant stood and offered her his kerchief. Fortunately, he had a clean one as Julia insisted on having them washed every night.
“Did you pass this information on to anyone?” Grant didn’t realize that the words had come from his mouth. He was still shocked by the woman’s statement. Who would be cruel enough to murder a veteran, a man who had survived four years of hardship and torture?
Mrs. Halley shook her head. “No, who do I tell in a town this size? The sheriff’s been in Higginsport. We don’t have our own lawman. The mayor handles trials, but that’s about all we ever have.”
The town only held a couple hundred people at best. The village couldn’t afford the luxuries of the county seats. County officials made due by taking other jobs. Who would pay for the extravagance of concentrated workers? “So you just buried your man without saying a word? Did you tell the mayor or any of Halley’s friends? They would have done something.” Grant knew that everyone in town most likely knew that the sheriff was gone. It would be a perfect time to kill Halley if that was the case. Yet, the doctor and the coroner had both ruled the death as natural.
For a second, Grant thought she was going to cry again or maybe leave the room. “Friends? Those men are the ones that got him killed in the first place. Why would I tell them a damned thing?”
Grant leaned back in his seat. Women didn’t use words like that. He had the good graces to be embarrassed for the both of them. He cleared his throat carefully before continuing. He didn’t want to provoke another unseemly outburst. “And the money?”
“Satan’s filthy lucre if you ask me. I never wanted no truck with it.” Mrs. Halley crossed her arms over her bosom, and slumped down on the loveseat like an errant child.
“So little Jess did get the money from your house?” Grant leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbow on his leg as he listened. The conversation had taken an odd course to his intended subject.
She nodded. “I didn’t want to lie, but I had no choice. Those boys weren’t supposed to be in there.”
“So you admit to the money?” Jesse’s eyes lit up behind his gold-rimmed glasses. Grant recognized his father’s look of avarice. How many times he had cooked up a scheme to make money donning that same expression? If the want of money was the root of all evil, Jesse Grant sat at its vortex.
Mrs. Halley shook her head. “I don’t know much. I just know that every month, like clockwork, we got gold coins. Christopher would never tell me where they come from. I had my suspicions, but he wouldn’t speak a word. He said I was better off not knowing.” Although Grant shared all the details of the household budget with Julia, he knew many homes where the wife knew nothing of their finances. Grant didn’t see how a military man could have effected that plan with the long periods away from home and the expenses, but Mrs. Halley seemed comfortable with the arrangement.
“When did this start?” Grant watched his father’s mental calculations of the money.
“When he got back in May, he had a bundle of coins. He spent most of them, buying this place and furnishing it.” She waved an ebony gloved hand around the room to make her point. The parlor had been filled with well-made furniture, and detailed wood tables. Grant knew that this artifice had not come cheap, but unlike his father, he couldn’t mentally tabulate her possessions. “I thought that was the end of the booty, but then in June, he had more. Not like the first time, but enough to make sure we wouldn’t want for a thing. And then every month from then on.”
“Where did you get the money for the pastor? Was that from the first month’s coins?” Jesse had calmed down and now was leaning back in his chair, though he was still scanning the room from time to time. Most likely mentally assessing the value of the place.
Mrs. Halley opened her mouth, and then shut it again. “Yes. When Christopher came home with all that money and wouldn’t tell me where it come from, I knew that it was blood money. So I put my foot down. We would give our tithe to the church, just as if we’d earned it honestly. He didn’t dare deny the Lord His share.”
Jesse nodded, respectfully. With his years of sharing a home with a religious woman, he’d managed to learn how not to anger a spouse. Grant and Julia shared a less devout conviction to the Methodist church. “That’s wise, ma’am. I’m sure the Lord appreciated your spirit.”
She sniffed in such a way that Grant suspected a crying jag was not far off. “Not enough. He still took my Christopher. I would have made him give it all, if I’d knowed that was the price of that money.” She picked up a figurine that looked like what he knew as Dresden. Julia raved about it. Mrs. Halley looked at the piece for a moment and let it slide from her hand to the wood floor. It splintered into a thousand tiny shards that skittered along the floor. She started to pick up another one, but Jesse snatched it from her hand. Grant knew where his father’s true concern rested.
Grant harrumphed. He didn’t see any Divine retribution in the death of his friend. Killing came from men for selfish reasons. “So what happened to your husband? As I said before, I thought he died of natural causes.”
She shook her head and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. She took the time to dab her eyes before speaking. “Not that I could see. He took ill after eating some meat I’d cooked. I helped him lay down. The next day I found him dead. The doctor said the meat was bad, but I know better.”
Grant thought of all the men he’d seen decimated by spoiled meat and unwashed produce. Still if Halley had withstood the conditions of Andersonville, he should have been able to fend off a piece of bad cow. His constitution should be a match for any diet after the prison camp. The men had lived on a menu of raw meat and cornmeal mix with the occasional cornhusk. The volume of corn gave men diarrhea and the pork was often tainted. “It could have been some bad meat, ma’am. I’ve seen it do terrible things to a man.”
She steeled herself to sit straight on the loveseat. “It couldn’t have been. I nibbled from that same piece of meat while it were cooking. Nothing was wrong with that meat.”
Grant furrowed his brow. “Did you tell the doctor as much?”
She nodded again. “Of course and the coroner as well when he examined Christopher, but who listens to the word of a woman. She’s just covering up for her slovenly ways and bad cooking.”
Grant knew the truth of that statement. He loved Julia dearly, and followed her word as Gospel, but many was the time when that word had to be passed through a husband and a general in order for others to pay heed. “Well, ma’am. I hear what you have to say. I promise to take a look into this matter.”
She sniffed loudly and brushed her nose with the handkerchief. “General, thank you so much. I have to apologize for my behavior. I never meant to cause your family any concern about those coins. I just don’t care to ever see them again.”
He nodded in sympathy. “I can understand that, but what would you have us do now? The coins are already at the parish with Reverend Evans.”
Mrs. Halley managed a feeble nod. “That’s fin
e. I didn’t want them anyway. I’d put them in Christopher’s coffin.”
Chapter 6
“No wonder Jess wasn’t more forthcoming about where he got those coins. Those boys took them from the man’s coffin no less.” Jesse had begun to make a habit of discussing the case as soon as he alit on the front steps. The little boy’s namesake looked disappointed. Even as money-hungry as Jesse was, Grant’s father would draw the line at grave robbing.
“That still doesn’t tell us where the coins originally came from. They came to the Halleys by way of someone.”
Jesse smiled at his son. “Well, for those answers, we’ll have to consult the living. Halley and Young can’t tell us a thing. Unless you believe in them Ouija boards now that you’ve been out in the world.” He slapped his son on the back and started down the road.
Grant knew immediately where his father was headed, and wasn’t sure that he liked the implications. Jesse was wending his way up Plane Street to Zeke Newman’s house. The stately home stuck out like a thoroughbred amongst the workhorses in Bethel. If anyone knew anything, it would be Newman. Yet the thought of an interrogation made Grant cringe. The man had shown the Grants kindness by taking them in when the Halleys couldn’t. How could they go into his home now and abuse his hospitality? He would be accusing his host of thievery on a grand scale.
Few crimes shy of murder and horse thieving could be considered worse. Even if the spoils went to the victors by axiom, it didn’t include making off with an entire Treasury. That money rightfully belonged to the Federal Government, the people who had put the nation in debt to preserve a single Union.
The Confederacy had not created its own money supply. Just as they had adopted a constitution similar to the Union, they had appropriated the coins and dies from the Union. The government had coined using the Federal mints on Southern soil to keep the economy going. This new “country” hadn’t bothered to alter the dies. They pumped out gold pieces identical to the Union’s until the mints exhausted the metals. Any claims to the coins or the metals belonged with the government, no questions needed. Grant was sure that his father knew all that and more about the money supply. Smart merchants kept an eye on the gold market, even if there was nothing they could do to change it.
US Grant Mysteries Boxed Set Page 21
