US Grant Mysteries Boxed Set

by Jeffrey Marks

  Grant turned to face the city. The view wasn’t the best façade to represent the city. The mud and commerce were not amenable to the society gentlemen and ladies that Grant now associated with. Robson’s Coppersmith store stood behind them, and the brass shop wasn’t far off. Businesses, like the flooring mill, didn’t much care if the city put on a good face to the world; they were more interested in making a profit on the river’s trade. Piles of lumber lay strewn across the outskirts of the landing.

  To his left, Grant could see the twin towers of Christ Church just visible in the sliver of moonlight. He recognized the bulbous domed tower of the old Botanico Medical College on East Third Street; it had been Frances Trollope’s Bazaar before she’d left Cincinnati in disgust at its provincial behavior. An odd structure, a previous architectural trend toward Middle Eastern architecture had influenced the bazaar, which had held every type of food establishment imaginable.

  Granby’s voice shook Grant from his thoughts. “This here is where my mama and me crossed the river back in ‘61. We came across with two other families when we heard there’s to be war. The master went to talk to some other owners about getting together a regiment to fight the yanks and we all ran away. Managed to use a boat that was mostly planks and bailing wire, but we did it. Was a shame. I heard the next week that three other families weren’t quite so lucky. They was picked out of the river way down in Indiana.”

  Grant had heard that many a slave had thought they could swim it. With the soft lapping of the water against the stone landing, the river could be deceptively quiet, waiting to claims its victims. The current ran fast so that bodies can travel downstream two or three miles.

  The Ohio River made its way west at a rapid pace tonight, the quarter moon shimmering on the water as it cruised by. Grant had always enjoyed the river when it wasn’t a part of his military campaigns. Enough of those had involved rivers of the South.

  Two stone pylons rose out of the Ohio. Grant knew that General John Roebling and his son had worked on a bridge here before the war. A lack of financial support and a war between the states had stopped the bridge with only the supports in place. Southerners had worried about the runaways, and Northerners had worried about a possible attack in the event of war. They’d been fairly near right with Kirby Smith’s attack near here three years ago.

  With the war over for six months now, Grant had heard talk about starting the bridge up again. Only the cables and the iron floor needed to be added to make it operational. He wondered at the accomplishment to walk across 1000 feet of open water.

  Grant was brought back to the water’s edge by Granby’s voice. “This is where my Pappy was found. There were two other boats here that night when they found his body. The captain of one of them boats found him. Heard a clunking sound against the hull and went to check it out.”

  Hart was almost down in the water by now, looking at the way the boats were tied to their moorings. Grant suddenly remembered the Sultana, which had exploded on his birthday this year. The steamboat tragedy had taken the lives of 1500 soldiers only a few weeks after Lincoln’s assassination. April had been a deadly month. Since then, Grant paused before stepping aboard a steamship.

  Hart scoured the stones, looking for something, but he didn’t seem to find anything. The stones would hold precious little of the man’s death after all this time. The public landing was the main embarkation into the city from the water. All of the boats and ships that came to Cincinnati landed here to unload cargo and pick up passengers and goods to go west to the great Mississippi. It might as well have been scrubbed clean.

  “Why did you bring us here?” Grant asked, impatient to be out in the chilly night air without his coat. He hadn’t expected to be gone this long and had not worn anything heavier than his jacket.

  Hart looked up. “If I’m not mistaken, Granby wants us to see that the river is running at a fast clip. If his father had stumbled and fallen into the Ohio at this point, his body would not have been found here. It would have been fished out of the river no sooner than the West End or later.”

  “That was my thought too,” Granby stated.

  “What proof is there?” Grant asked. He had no desire to confront Ruffin again about the killing of Granby senior unless he had physical evidence. So far, he only had ghosts and supposition. He didn’t want to be beholden to a city politician when his own political career was on the rise. That just wouldn’t do. It would be akin to a general owing favors to a private.

  Granby shrugged. “I know what I know. This was no accident.”

  Hart was still down by the river, looking into the dark swirls of the passing water. “There are a couple of things we could do to find out more here. We just need to look at this logically.”

  Granby took two steps toward Hart, and the reporter backed up, nearly stepping off the landing. He righted himself and continued, “First, if indeed the body was dumped upstream and found here, then we’d need to determine where that was. Did your father have business to the east? I’m guessing it would have been out past New Richmond.”

  Grant furrowed his brow. Why would any former slaves have business out that way? The area was rural, as remote and insular as Bethel or Amelia. Its folk were not likely to welcome any strangers, white or black. Besides, the chances for making a living there were slim. The town had little to offer in the way of jobs or industry. “What’s the other option?”

  Hart cleared this throat. “I wasn’t in favor of that option myself. That would mean that someone had carted Granby’s body from here to somewhere upstream. Too much chance of being caught. There’s never a good way to explain having a dead body in the back of the carriage.”

  “What else are you thinking?” Granby asked.

  The man scanned the riverfront area, and Grant wondered if he was expecting trouble. This area had once been populated by the keelers, the rough and tumble men who navigated the Ohio on keelboats. These days, mostly steamers came through the city, but the area was still known for trouble after hours. Thugs and fallen women preyed on the strangers who came to town, and some of the city elders had been battling steamships of ill repute that wanted to dock here for a night. The area’s reputation made it safe only for men who could protect themselves.

  “Well,” Hart began.

  Grant knew that look on the reporter’s face. It meant that his next idea was likely to upset Granby. No wonder he’d been skittish about the man getting too close to him. Hart wanted to be out of arm’s reach when he sprang these new questions on him.

  “I was wondering if you’d seen the body before your father was buried. I mean, did it look bloated from being in the water a long time or not?”

  Granby shrugged, apparently less affected by the question than Hart had expected. “We didn’t get to see the body. Didn’t get to go to the funeral neither. Just her and the three kids got to. Like we weren’t a part of the family.”

  A look crossed the reporter’s face, and Grant speculated that Hart was thinking about his own father, who’d run off to join the rebels during the war never to be heard from again. He’d chosen his principles, however misguided, over his family. These times made people uncertain of their families. Forty years ago, a man lived and died within spitting distance of his kin. Now there was no telling where a man could end up before his days ended.

  “I already checked the name of the captain who found the body. His name is Donnally, and his ship, the Paragon, is in Pittsburgh this week. So there’s no way to tell if my theory is correct until next week at the earliest.” Hart looked crestfallen.

  Grant knew that the man wanted to break a big story in Cincinnati to make the editors sit up and pay attention to him. Next week, Grant would be gone and his access to the best families in town would have dried up faster than the autumn leaves.

  “What exactly is this theory of yours?” Grant demanded. He was tired and wanted to get home. The chill was soaking into his bones now.

  “That Granby was dumped in the rive
r just before he was discovered. That would make sense for a couple of reasons. First, the people who killed him would live around here. There was no reason to think that’s he’d go east to meet his death. I looked up the river levels from a few weeks ago, and it was running even faster than it is now. Granby’s body might never have been found—no matter where it was put in the river.”

  Grant nodded. That made sense. He’d ridden in an odd carriage or two with a corpse, and it was not a pleasant experience. The miles out to New Richmond would be hard and long with Granby’s body in the carriage.

  “Secondly, think about the story. The captain heard a noise on the side of his bow and came out to investigate. A body would have to hit a board pretty hard to make a thump like that. Maybe the killer wanted the body found, so he dumps the body into the river by the boats and then takes a pole and hits it against the side of one of the ships. That would make enough of a ruckus to get the captain to look.”

  “That don’t make sense,” Granby said. “He’d been missing three days when they found his body here.”

  “Right, if his body was just dumped into the river before the captain found him, it wouldn’t be very bloated. You’d be able to tell from looking how long he’d been in the water.”

  “If he wasn’t in the river, then where was he?”

  Hart paused. “We need to try to fill in what he was doing in those missing days before we can answer that. Maybe he was just gone off those days, or maybe the killer kept him locked up for that time for some reason. Information, perhaps?”

  “But why?” Granby’s voice now carried the emotion that Hart had been concerned about. The words came out in a wail that seemed to echo off the silent buildings. No one else seemed to be moving around here tonight.

  “That I don’t know. Most killers want to make the body disappear, not have it be noticed immediately after the crime. They don’t keep people locked up for days before they kill them. It makes me wonder if the killer might have established an alibi for the time that the body was found. That would make sense. Then he would be clear of any suspicion about the crime. Otherwise, he might be accused of the crime, which means that he’d be an obvious suspect in the case of a suspicious death.”

  “Why my Pappy? He never did harm to people.”

  “I don’t know, but finding out about the state of the body is the first step to getting those answers.”

  Chapter 15

  Grant’s worries about visiting the seedier sides of Cincinnati had vanished by the next morning. He’d dined with Julia in the parlor of their hotel suite, a sumptuous affair of coffee, fruit, eggs, and bacon. He pondered which slaughterhouse had provided the pork, which was cooked to a crisp, almost crunchy texture.

  Grant told the story of the séance to his wife, including his mother-in-law’s supposed warnings about Colonel Dent. Julia had looked melancholy for a moment. He knew that his wife missed her mother and White Haven. For some reason, she’d always thought of the place as a paradise rather than a working farm.

  Finally, she finished the sliced apple on her plate and looked at Grant. “You really don’t believe that, do you? The warnings?”

  Grant knew his wife well enough to know that she wouldn’t believe the pronouncements of Madame Blanche. Still, he’d owed her the truth about what was said. How easy it would be to bilk people out of their hard-earned wages with stories like those of the spiritualist. The story of the lost cash made Julia smile and realize that she’d been indulging in nostalgia more than dealing with the facts.

  “What do you have planned today?” Julia asked with a sparkle in her eyes. She knew that Grant wanted to put his own ghost stories to rest. Even though Jericho Granby had confessed that he’d been the cause of the manifestation, he’d seemed certain someone had murdered his father. This entire ruse had been to gain Grant’s attention. If that one manifestation could be a hoax, Grant knew that they all could be.

  The police seemed to think that the elder Granby had fallen in the river. Maybe Grant just sympathized with someone who might not have been drunk, even though the official reports had said so. He knew only too well how people were quick to explain away actions with booze.

  “Mr. Hart wants to go visit the first Mrs. Granby, and then perhaps talk to the Mitchells again.” Grant put his coffee cup back on the tray. He was still unused to table manners after quartermastering without a supply train. How different life could become in just six months.

  “Well, might I suggest that you visit with the major and his wife tonight? We’re going to a reception at the Opera House this evening.”

  Grant moaned at the thought of opera. He wasn’t a man who liked the “finer arts.” He was a simple man who’d much prefer a harmonica’s tune to the oboe and cello.

  “You knew we had that engagement,” Julia chided. “Men who wish to donate to your presidential campaign will be there as well. You need to be polite to them.”

  Grant sighed and picked up his jacket. Today promised to be a chilly fall day betwixt the rain and the clouds. Even though he didn’t live in a tent, he missed the warmth of a summer day. This fine suite at the Burnet House couldn’t salve his spirits.

  “Be back by five. We can have dinner and then go to the Opera House.”

  As if by a theatrical production’s cue, Hart chose that very moment to knock. Grant opened the door and let the reporter in.

  “General. Mrs. Grant, how are you?”

  Julia mumbled something at the wall and turned to look out the window. She didn’t like Hart at all and made no pretense about it. She saw him as a hanger-on, someone who wished to ride the general’s coattails to greater things. Julia wanted to protect her husband from hangers-on, even though she knew him to be loyal to only a trusted few. Grant thought it amusing that she couldn’t see the same desire to ride Grant’s fame in her father.

  Grant closed the door on the way out and looked at Hart. “Are we off to see the widow Granby?”

  Hart nodded. “The first one this time. I don’t mean to tell tales out of school, but were you aware that there’s a lawman standing down the hall from your suite? He stopped me as I came up the stairs and asked me what my business was with you.”

  Grant smiled into his beard. He’d like to know the answer to that himself. “No, I wasn’t aware, but it fits with Jericho Granby’s story that he couldn’t come to the hotel. There’s no way that a law officer would let a former slave up to see me.”

  They passed down the stairs and through the lobby without speaking, a first for Hart if Grant recalled. Hart led them down Sixth Street towards Bucktown. He was less skittish this time, more certain in his step. Granby had given them his mother’s address before leaving them last night and said he would try to meet them at her house if he could.

  The street teemed with horses and riders, carriages, and stray livestock. A pig glanced their way before running off squealing. The noise of the Fifth Street Market greeted them at each corner, a jumble of offers, questions, and negotiations. Grant saw maids carrying squash and red delicious apples for their families. No one looked like they were involved in murder or deception—a nice change from his tour thus far.

  As he walked east with the reporter, the crowds thinned out. Even though the area looked much less intimidating during the day, it still wasn’t the best neighborhood for most. Grant turned his head when he heard the click of a man’s heels behind him.

  Hart noticed the abrupt motion and looked as well. No one was there.

  “Well, it’s not a ghost,” Hart exclaimed. “I heard it too. No one’s going to think that you see ectoplasmic spirits anymore.”

  Grant furrowed his brow as he looked at the man. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I’ve heard this particular step for the last three blocks.”

  “You think we’re being followed?”

  Hart looked around. “Well, at least in Bucktown, if it’s a white man following us, we should be able to spot him without difficulty.”

  Grant nodded a
s they crossed Broadway into Bucktown again. The address Granby had given them was on Sixth Street, just beyond the intersection. They found an old brick home scrunched in among a row of similar dwellings, and Grant saw shanties down the street. The front step was swept and clean, even though the street beneath the stoop was littered with animal waste and trash. This was about as far as one could get from the Opera House, Grant thought wryly.

  He’d put his foot on the first step when the front door swung open, a wooden affair with a single hinge holding it in place. The woman looked more like she was dancing with it than opening the door to visitors.

  “You must be General Grant and that reporter man. Jericho told me you was coming. I was tickled to hear it.”

  She held the door open for them and let them pass. She shut the door, blocking out the smells, the noise and the light.

  In the dusk of the tenement home, Grant could make out a long hallway, stairs to the left and a parlor on the right. Grant and Hart moved to the parlor and waited for their hostess. The scent of lye was strong in the room, making short work of the strong street odors.

  The parlor was sparsely furnished. A straw-filled mattress rested on the floor. A washbasin and bowl, and a tattered loveseat stood against the opposite wall. The lone window held threadbare drapes that filtered the morning light. The noise of small children confirmed Grant’s suspicions that she only rented a room or two of the house.

  “It is an honor,” Mrs. Granby said, motioning the two of them to sit.

  Grant looked around, but the loveseat was the only seat in the room, and a woman didn’t sit that close to a gentleman without appropriate chaperones. Yet, he didn’t like the thought of the woman standing while he sat alone.

  “Madam, I can’t…” Grant said, continuing to stand.

  Hart had taken a seat on the cushion and had a notepad balanced on his knee.

  “Thank you, General, but I don’t mind at all. Really, it is nice to run into a gentleman in these parts.”