Murder in the Lincoln White House Read online

  “I don’t know, sir . . . Mr. Billings mightn’t like that—oh.” He bit his lip and straightened as he realized the only person in charge now was Mrs. Billings, and she was incapacitated for the moment. “I-I think so, sir. Mebbe the sitting room here?”

  “Please sit down, James,” Adam said. “I’m sure it comes as a shock to you to hear about your—your employer. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to do something like this?”

  “No, sir. No, I can’t. Mr. Billings, he was liked well enough, far as I could tell.”

  Adam hesitated. What else did he want to know? What else could help him with this puzzle?

  And then it came to him. The answer settled in his mind in what Ishkode called a “knowing.”

  Yes, this murder investigation was quite like watching for signs in the woods of some creature that had passed by, or discerning the coming of some threat of weather, or reading the story of what had happened in a battle between two animals. But to be a good tracker, one had to have knowledge of the woods, of the earth, of the seasons, of the weather. One had to know the habits and lifestyle of nature, and how all the elements—fire, water, air, wind, earth—acted and interacted.

  In order to identify the predator of a mutilated rabbit, he had to know how the rabbit lived, where it went and sought food, how it mated, what its habitat was. He knew everything about it . . . and then combined that knowledge with the traces the predator left behind: tracks, scat, and how the prey was fed upon and when, and in what condition it was left....

  And so it must be the same with tracking this killer as well. Adam must learn everything about this nature. This world—and everything he could discover about the victim and the life he’d lived.

  So he looked at James and considered how to go about getting information he didn’t know existed. Start with the basic information, and follow the trail. “Do Mr. and Mrs. Billings have any children?”

  “Oh, no, sir.” James shook his head sadly. “There was a child, just a year ago . . . but he died. And Mrs. Billings, she ain’t been the same since. She ain’t got no family either. No mother or sisters to come see to her. Just a brother.”

  Adam hesitated, then said, “I’m going to have to ask you some questions that might seem strange or too nosy, but it’s important you answer them. Anything you tell me could help me find out who killed your employer.”

  James nodded, his lips firm. “I’ll do my best, sir. Mr. Billings was a good man. He treats—treated—us well. Not like some other—” He quickly changed the subject. “And Mrs. Billings, she’s a kind lady too. We were all very sad when the boy died. They were married almost twenty years, and there was only the one child.”

  “Was she sick when she had the baby?”

  “No, sir. The baby was a year old when he died. Tubber—tub-berlosees, they said. I don’t know much about what the mistress is sick from. Lacey—she’s the upstairs maid—said a growth in her middle is what’s causing it, but it ain’t another baby.”

  “You greet most of the visitors who come here, right, James?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Has a man named Hurst Lemagne ever called for Mr. Billings?”

  “No, sir. Not that I remember.”

  Adam fumbled around for another question. “Have you ever heard Mr. Billings arguing with or angry with any of his business associates or anyone else who came to the house?”

  James began to shake his head, then stopped. His eyes grew wide as he looked at Adam. “There was someone. I heard them in the master’s study. Their voices were loud and it sounded like—well, something broke.”

  “Do you know who it was? What they were arguing about?”

  He thought for a moment, staring into the space over Adam’s shoulder. “I couldn’t hear them. The other man . . . I don’t know his name. I heard something about—about ducks.... Holding ducks, I think. But I don’t know what that is.”

  “Holding ducks?” Adam frowned, turning the words over in his mind. What on earth . . . ? “Could it have been docks? Dock loading, maybe?” But even that didn’t make any sense. Yes, Washington had a shipyard and a naval yard too, and plenty of docks—and probably some ducks living in the Chesapeake Bay area—but none of that made any sense.

  “I don’t know, sir. I couldn’t hear them that well.”

  “Was there anything about the man you remember? Anything that might help identify him? What did he look like? Did he arrive in his own carriage?”

  James rubbed his eyes wearily. “Mebbe he was forty years old. He had some curly hair, and his beard was curling too.” He gestured as if he were fingering a very wiry, frizzy beard. “It was blond. Dark blond. And he come in a fancy open landau.” He squinted as if trying to remember. “It was black and had a gold seal on the side. A big cross-like thing.” He gestured, making a sign like a T.

  T. For Titus?

  Adam nodded. “Thank you. That’s very helpful, James. Is there anything else you can think of that might help me? And is there someone to call for Mrs. Billings? A friend, some family? She’s obviously not well, and I’d hate for her to take a bad turn.”

  “Louise, she’s going to send to Mrs. Billings’s brother, Mr. Orton and his wife. Her only family now. And mebbe Mrs. Delton and Mrs. Lomax too. They be her friends.”

  But not Mrs. Titus? “That’s good. If you think of anything else, James, I need you to send for me at the Willard.”

  The butler stood and gave a little bow. He started to leave, then turned back. “Sir, is it true you’re working for Mr. Lincoln?” He said the name with reverence.

  “It is.”

  James looked as if he were about to speak, then thought better of it. Instead, he straightened up as if he’d just been given some great and important task. “Thank you, sir. I’ll send Louise in next. She’s the housekeeper.”

  Adam asked similar questions of Louise. She was a clear-eyed woman of fifty with pudgy hands and short, iron gray hair. Unfortunately, she had little to add to James’s answers.

  “Miz Althea . . . she’s just sick about this all. Poor lamb. And she ain’t never been the same since her baby boy died. Poor lamb. Waited so long for a baby, and then that.”

  “I’m very sorry for her loss—and for yours as well.”

  “She’s already done cried through two handkerchiefs and a linen tablecloth.” Louise’s eyes filled as well. “Mr. Billings . . . he was a kind man. I know how unkind a man can be, sir, and he was not that way. He was nice to Miz Althea too, even after she got sick and didn’t leave the house anymore and didn’t like to come out of her room.”

  Being nice to his wife didn’t include taking a mistress, Adam reckoned. Once again, he wanted to ask about Annabelle Titus, but he couldn’t bring himself to be so blunt. Instead he tried a different tactic. “Did a Mr. or Mrs. Titus ever visit the Billingses?”

  To her credit, Louise didn’t answer immediately, and seemed to ponder. “That name sounds familiar, sir, but I don’t know anyone calling here with that name. But Mrs. Billings wasn’t accepting callers much in the last year, ’cepting her brother, who come from Baltimore sometimes. And Mrs. Delton.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Mr. Billings? Anyone he might have argued with?”

  “We heard it once—me and James. Him and a man in the study. The man was shouting like he was gon’ kill him.” Her eyes popped wide as she realized what she’d said. “Oh, sir.”

  “Do you know who it was? Did you hear what they were arguing about? Could you tell who was shouting?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. They was just loud voices raised, somethin’ about shells and cockles, I think, something that made him real mad, whatever it was. Man slammed out the door and got in his carriage and left. Mr. Billings didn’t come out of his study for two hours after that.” She tsked and shook her head.

  “When did they argue? Do you remember?”

  “It was . . . well, now, it was mebbe a week past. Or five days. Not ve
ry long.”

  “Did you see the carriage that brought the man?”

  “It shore was fancy.”

  Though Louise was impressed by the carriage that could have belonged to Titus, she wasn’t able to add any new information. Mr. Billings’s manservant, Stanley, had been dispatched to take the message to Mrs. Billings’s brother, so he wasn’t present to be interviewed. The housemaid, Lacey, who’d been in Mrs. Billings’s bedchamber, came into the room next, but as she was restricted mainly to caring for her mistress, she hardly was aware of what went on downstairs.

  “I don’ think Miz Althea’s gone get through this,” she said when Adam had finished questioning her. “She’s been in a bad way, and this might just do her in.” Her eyes were sad and her mouth grim. “Then I don’t know what we gonna do, me and James and Louise and Stanley.”

  Adam felt a little tug of concern, for just this morning he’d seen the sort of living arrangements that would be available to the likes of four free Negroes in Washington. Residing in dank, filthy alleys in cramped, ramshackle housing with few options for employment, and low wages when they could find it.

  Things would get even worse when the war came. They’d get worse for everyone.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE ST. CHARLES HOTEL WAS CLOSER TO THE CAPITOL THAN THE President’s House, and, like most of the important buildings in the ward—at least as far as those people who ran the country were concerned—it was on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was in the heart of the business district, in the shadows of the half-domed building that housed Congress and all of its offices, a cafeteria, restaurants, and galleries.

  Two wings had been added to the Capitol within the last ten years, and the new, larger dome needed to balance this redesigned architecture was only half completed. Nor were the marble wings—still lacking even stairs to access them—completed, and only three of the planned one hundred Corinthian columns had been finished with their decorative tops. A crane and scaffolding around the base of the cast-iron dome marked the activity still needing to be done in order to finish the work.

  As Adam approached, a uniformed man opened the St. Charles Hotel’s front door, tipping his hat with a polite greeting. When he entered the lobby and headed for the registration desk, he noticed a prominent sign on the wall:

  HOTEL HAS UNDERGROUND CELLS FOR

  CONFINING SLAVES FOR SAFEKEEPING.

  IN CASE OF ESCAPE, FULL VALUE OF THE NEGRO

  WILL BE PAID BY THE PROPRIETOR OF THE HOTEL.

  Adam stared as the words sunk in, then looked away, shocked and ashamed that such a notice would be posted in a public place.

  If we do go to war, God willing the Union will remain intact, and Lincoln will do what must be done and free the slaves.

  Until he’d moved to Kansas in 1855, Adam hadn’t considered himself a true abolitionist. He’d grown up in the free state of Illinois, spending almost a decade living with his uncle in Springfield, and thus had little experience with what was known as the “peculiar institution.” Since it didn’t affect him, he gave it hardly any thought.

  But then he went off to Wisconsin. There he became friends with Ishkode and learned how to live with, comprehend, and respect the natural world. He remained there, often traveling north with his Ojibwe friend’s tribe, making a living hunting and trapping for nearly five years.

  Living close to the land and learning about the way the Ojibwe honored nature and all creatures gave Adam much to think about when it came to the idea of enslaving humans, and the more he thought about it, the more he became distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of that unique “domestic arrangement”—as it was also called.

  After the Kansas-Nebraska Act, in which Congress voted to allow each new state to determine, on its own, whether to be free or slave, the Free State movement began in earnest in Kansas. Abolitionists—often ministers or other religious speakers—from the North encouraged enterprising young men like Adam to move to Kansas Territory, or KT, and homestead so as to garner enough support to keep the territory free of slavery when it came time to be brought into the Union.

  The idea of owning his own land was all the incentive Adam needed, and he made the decision to bid farewell to Ishkode and transplant himself to a new adventure in Kansas. Supporting the Free-State initiative while trying something new was, Adam had told himself, one way he could honor what he’d learned about respecting nature from his Ojibwe friend.

  The battles between the pro-slavers—who crossed the border from slave state Missouri to vote illegally, and even set up a false government to promote their agenda—and the Free State advocates were vicious, bloody, and unyielding. Too many of Adam’s friends were tarred and feathered, maimed, or even killed during the skirmishes, and the hatred and evil he experienced at the opposite end of the pro-slavery movement was more than enough to solidify his belief that slavery should be completely abolished—not simply confined to the South.

  And that was three years before he lost his arm during the attack at Tom and Mary’s house.

  “May I help you?”

  Adam was jolted from his unpleasant musings. He looked at the neatly dressed man behind the registration desk, who was eyeing his well-worn coat and the battered hat that was still on Adam’s head with undisguised disdain. To the man’s coat was pinned a palmetto cockade: the badge made from palm reeds from South Carolina—the first state to secede. The flower-like ornament openly announced its wearer’s support for the secessionists.

  “I’d like to speak with Hurst Lemagne,” Adam said, deliberately taking his time in removing his offending hat.

  “Who shall I say is asking?”

  He didn’t know if it was the man’s barely concealed disdain, the palmetto badge, or the sign about slaves—maybe it was even seeing young Brian Mulcahey running around with his big toe sticking out of his boot in a coat that was too small—that got his dander up, but it was up.

  Adam leaned nearly halfway across the counter, resting his crossed arms in the center. His substantial height required the other man to look up at him even from the other side. “Adam Quinn. I need to speak with Lemagne. Now. I’ll wait over there.” He jerked his chin toward a cluster of blue velvet chairs. A fat spittoon sat on the ground between two of them and a fern’s feathery leaves spilled from a table above it.

  Apparently, Adam got his point across, for the man spun on what surely were perfectly blacked shoes and hurried away to speak to a page.

  Adam removed himself from the counter slowly and deliberately, gathered up his hat, and went over to wait. Since it was still early by society’s standards—just approaching ten o’clock—there were only a few people wandering through the lobby. However, he noticed a proliferation of southern accents filtering through the air. It seemed this establishment was the preferred one for those whose sympathies rested with the South.

  Frowning, he rubbed his chin. Hadn’t most of the Southern politicians left the city already? Seven states had seceded since the election, and from what he understood, the exodus of many people from those same states had emptied the city as well, including their senators and congressmen. But apparently some businessmen and visitors still lingered.

  Which brought him to a very interesting question: What had Constance Lemagne and her father, from Alabama, been doing at the inaugural ball for a man who was loathed and despised—called evil, and an ape, and many other vulgarities—by those of their ilk?

  “Mr. Quinn!”

  Speak of the devil.

  He rose, barely remembering to remove his hat again, and greeted Miss Lemagne.

  She looked quite fetching this morning. Even more so, he thought, than she had last night, when she had been wearing yards of fabric, lace, and ruffles, along with a fussy headdress. Today, her honey-gold hair fluttered in soft, minuscule wisps around her face, and though most of her ears were covered by smooth swoops of hair drawn back into a tidy knot, he could see the delicate shape of her earlobes peeking from below.

  He was rising fro
m the brief bow of greeting when he got a better look at her eyes. “Miss Lemagne. Is something wrong?”

  His mother would probably have jabbed him with her pointed shoe if she’d heard him, for asking such a question implied there was something amiss in a woman’s bearing or presentation—a not so subtle criticism of her grooming or looks. But the wide blue eyes and the dark circles under them told him what he needed to know.

  “Miss Lemagne, has something happened with your father?”

  She sank onto the chair next to the one he’d just vacated and pulled him down into his seat. “First, Mr. Quinn, you need to know—I’m not engaged to Arthur Mossing. I wanted you to know that immediately.”

  “All right.” He nodded, feeling a small flicker of warmth at the news. It was stoked further by the realization that she’d cared enough to inform him so immediately. “And about your father?”

  “He didn’t get back until almost dawn this morning. I waited up all night, listening for him to return to his room. It’s right next to mine,” she explained. “When I finally heard him at the door, I went out to see him, and—”

  “Constance, what are you doing?” A loud, angry voice had both of them turning. “I thought I told you to stay in the room.”

  “Mr. Quinn, I need to speak with you about something,” she said in a rushed, hushed voice as she grabbed his arm. “As soon as possible. Meet me—meet me at the lobby at the Kirkwood at one o’clock.”

  She released his wrist and rose. Though she looked chagrined, Miss Lemagne didn’t appear to be cowed or frightened by the man—presumably her father. “Daddy,” she began.

  Adam stood to greet the newcomer. “Mr. Lemagne? Good morning. I’m Adam Quinn—”

  “I don’t give a damn who you are,” retorted the man. His voice boomed, drawing attention from the few people in the vicinity. “And I don’t care what you want. And I’ll not have you bothering my daughter.”

  Hurst Lemagne had likely given his daughter her whisky-colored hair, but his eyes—which flashed furiously—were not the same crystal blue as his offspring’s. Properly dressed—though obviously in a hurry, as his necktie was slightly off-center and he wasn’t wearing a hat—the man was of average height and had a torso shaped like a barrel. He had both mustache and beard, which were neatly trimmed and slightly waxed to smooth the ends, and a long, straight nose.