Murder in the Lincoln White House Page 7

  Now that he was awake, Adam heard the soft snores of his uncle rasping in the beginning of dawn’s light. Apparently Josh had let himself in during the brief time his nephew slumbered. Adam took care to be grim and silent as a wraith when he slid from his fancy bed.

  When Mr. Lincoln and his party had arrived at the Willard in the dead of night, a rich New Yorker had been removed from his suite of rooms on the second floor so the Lincoln party could take over Parlor Six and the rooms attached to it—which included an indoor toilet and water pump.

  Still unused to such a luxury as indoor plumbing, Adam finished his morning ablutions without taking time for the water to heat. Happy to be rid of the tight shoes, stiff collar, and restrictive neckcloth of his evening clothes, he strapped on his prosthetic, then dressed as he normally did: in a worn, cowhide vest and simple cotton shirt he was able to pull on without fussing with buttons.

  On the bottom, he wore black trousers tucked into worn boots. The boots at least were practical for traverse along the muddy, offal-strewn streets of the city. It had taken him some time to learn how to tie them using his false fingers, but now it was surprisingly easy.

  Adam set his wide-brimmed hat on damp, unruly hair that Joshua had suggested—in vain—he cut before the Union Ball, and considered the overcoat he’d brought with him from home. Its hem was becoming frayed and a button dangled a little too much, but it had large enough pockets to easily conceal his Navy Colt so he didn’t have to wear a gun belt. Plus, the fabric smelled pleasantly like prairie smoke.

  Last night, he’d cleaned the knife that had been found in the closet near Custer Billings’s body and wrapped it safely in an oilcloth. Now he tucked it into his knapsack. He had the idea it might be helpful for Dr. Hilton to look at it.

  Adam also meant to see if anyone could identify its owner, for the end of the hilt had a distinctive design. It was an unexceptional weapon except for the simple handle fashioned of black ivory. The end of the grip was capped by a hemisphere of opaque blue stone veined with black, and it was surrounded by tiny black beads. Nice, slightly decorative, definitely unusual enough to be an obvious identifier. Easily small enough to carry in a man’s boot—but no one was wearing boots last night to the ball. And the formal dress coats had no pockets, nor were they designed to be closed and buttoned, as Adam had cause to know, so the outline of a dagger could be noticed if it were sheathed and in a trouser pocket. Waistcoat pockets were barely large enough for a pocket watch. So where the murderer had carried his weapon was an intriguing question.

  Had the murderer even brought the weapon with him? Or had he come upon it and been compelled to use it for some reason? Or, he reckoned, had the killer secreted it somewhere on the grounds of City Hall or the dance hall? The answer to that question could be important, for it could indicate whether the murder had been planned, or whether it had been committed in a moment of passion.

  Who would plan to commit a murder at such a public event? The chance of being seen or interrupted would surely make it a foolish choice.

  Unless it was meant to be public. Like an assassination attempt—or a distraction from one.

  Adam’s boots made soft clumps as he descended the red carpeted staircase to the high-ceilinged hotel lobby. Crystal chandeliers sparkled from above, their glass pieces clinking like faint chimes as he bounded down the steps. Since it was barely dawn and the society-loving occupants of Willard’s weren’t likely to rise until midmorning, the common areas of restaurant, lounges, ballroom, barbershop, and other public rooms were empty and still except for the night manager, adding up figures at his desk, and the doorman in his pristine white gloves and navy and white uniform.

  Above the ever-present aroma of coal smoke, Adam smelled the faint scent of coffee, and he veered off into a small alcove where he found delicate white cups and a fresh pot of the beverage. He’d become so used to steeped chickory root out west that the real South American beans they ground here in Washington were a treat, and so far he’d never declined an opportunity to have a cup. He felt as if he should be in a hurry—though he wasn’t certain why—and the coffee scalded his mouth when he gulped it too soon.

  It was too early for the fancy, extensive breakfast the hotel served beginning at eight, but since Adam generally preferred fried eggs to the regular offerings of blancmange and gray slop called pâté de foie gras, he didn’t much mind the restaurant being closed.

  The Negro doorman greeted Adam as he went out into the brisk March dawn. His words left white puffs in the air as he said, “The omnibus don’t be running yet this morning and you ain’t goin’ find no hackney about now, mister,” looking both ways down Pennsylvania Avenue, and around the corner up Fourteenth Street. Adam followed his gaze, pleased to see that the streets were just as empty as the hotel lobby, except for a—

  Adam squinted in the pale gray light. “By God, is that a pig? Crossing the street up that way?” Surely he was mistaken. A hog walking down Fourteenth Street, proud as you please—only blocks from the President’s House and the Capitol Building.

  The doorman, who went by Birch, gave a raspy laugh. “Sure be. They like to wallow in the mud behind City Hall.”

  “They? How many pigs are there walking around the capital?”

  Birch shrugged. “Don’t rightly know, there, Mr. Quinn, sir. Enough, I s’pose. Where be you headed this morning so early? Usually it’s just me and them hogs out here at dawn time, and sometimes a goat too. And the bakers, up yonder on Seventh Street. That smell of bread baking sure makes my insides cry.” He grinned, adjusting his cap.

  “I’m going up to Ballard’s Alley—it’s in the First Ward,” he said. “To a church.”

  “A church at Ballard’s Alley? What you be wanting with up to there, mister? They don’t got services this early, and especially not on a Tuesday.”

  “I have an appointment. And no need to worry over a carriage. I’ll walk.” And he’d be happy to do so, though he’d have been happier to ride his horse. But he’d left Stranger back in Springfield when Josh had pressed him into joining the Lincoln party, which traveled by train. Only the Good Lord knew when he’d see him again.

  Adam bid Birch good morning and started off in the direction the man had indicated, albeit reluctantly.

  “Don’ know why you be goin’ all the way up to them mad alleys instead of you havin’ your appointment come down here—church or no church,” the doorman mumbled. “That’s what most sane folks do.”

  Most sane white folks, Adam thought as he strode along the two blocks where Pennsylvania Avenue jutted north between the Treasury Department and the grounds of the President’s House. The Capitol was at his back, though he couldn’t see it because the street had had to bend due to the size of the Treasury.

  This was the first time he’d been out of the hotel on his own in the daylight and on the streets since arriving in the city two weeks ago. It was hard to believe it had been that long, but Josh, General Scott, and Mr. Pinkerton kept Adam and the others in the president’s private security contingent occupied with keeping the hotel’s suite and parlors safe for Lincoln.

  On foot for the first time, Adam took in the frontier-like aspects of the city: a sewage canal that ran not far from the most traveled avenue, Pennsylvania, and contributed to its unpleasant odor; the unmaintained cobblestones and thick mud around and in between the street; and, most of all, the amount of livestock that seemed to make its way just as freely along the byways as the human citizens of the district. He saw not only pigs, but a passel of chickens and a cow as well, walking down the street as if it were a barnyard.

  This was certainly not what Adam would have expected for the capital of his nation.

  All along Pennsylvania Avenue to the north were houses, a few school buildings, and some churches. On the left, or south side, of the main thoroughfare were shanties and poorer structures. Toward the east, from Fourteenth down past Seventh Avenue, was the main business district of the city.

  He crossed Lafayette S
quare, just past the State Department, and the President’s Mansion was on his left. Sixteenth Avenue jutted due north from the large statue of Andrew Jackson on his rearing horse, leading into the area of the district known as the First Ward.

  By the time he turned north, past the dramatic statue, the sun had risen enough to cast its mellow golden glow over the city’s roofs.

  The First Ward’s residents were a nearly equal mix of whites, blacks—both free and slave—and a recent influx of immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany. The wealthiest lived in street-front homes or row houses, but the poorer ones—mostly free blacks and the abhorred Irish Catholics—lived along a warren of narrow, crowded walkways described as “the alleys.” The housing they rented was poorly constructed and flimsy.

  It was a strange sort of juxtaposition, for, unlike other cities, where the wealthy lived in one area while the poor were relegated to slums, and those who were neither resided in yet a different area, in the First Ward, the rich and underprivileged lived side by side. Or, more accurately, back to front.

  If he hadn’t been told, Adam wouldn’t have suspected that behind the prim brick homes with their small patches of lawn and neat walkways were shacks and other shelters accessed by narrow roads that cut behind the facade of wealth. Some of the passageways were called blind alleys, having no entrance or exit to a main road. These narrowest of the narrow streets could be accessed only via other alleys.

  Adam also discovered belatedly that none of the many alleys, blind or otherwise, were marked with street signs. It wasn’t until he stopped a scrawny boy carrying a brown hen under his arm and asked for directions that he found his way to Ballard’s Alley.

  “Great Eternity Church?” said the lad, who was missing a front tooth and wore a coat whose sleeves reached only halfway down his forearms. His nose was red from the chill. “Aye, that’s at the head of Ballard’s Alley, behind K Street. You see that chimney there, mister? With the tall neck and the black cap? The church is being right in its backyard.” His lisp didn’t hide the fact that he was Irish.

  Adam thanked him and, noting the way a big toe had worn a hole in one of the kid’s boots, gave him a quarter. “Much obliged, young man.”

  “Gor!” he said when he looked at the coin. “Thank you, mister.” The hen protested as the boy tucked the money inside his boot—it looked as if the boy squished her as he bent over. “You be still, Bessie,” he warned as he straightened. “I ain’t got time to be chasing on you again.”

  “Does Bessie lay eggs?” Adam asked.

  Damn, the kid reminded him of his youngest half brother, Danny. Maybe it was the plops of freckles on his cheeks that looked like maple syrup had rained on him, and the way his mud-brown hair stuck up in the back. Unlike Danny, however, the boy didn’t seem to have a coat that fit him, or shoes that held in his toes, or even a cap to keep his head warm and dry.

  “When she’s about wanting to,” the boy replied. “Which means, not too often. My mam says she’s going to be plucking her for a stew if she don’t stop running away and making me have to chase her down every morning insteada doing my chores. But I told her I’m not minding doing the chasing, and that we just can’t have Bessie for stew. She does lay eggs sometimes.”

  Adam didn’t know why he was lingering in this gray-to-golding light, but something kept him there with the boy and his struggling hen. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Brian. Brian Mulcahey.”

  “You got a job? You go to school?”

  “Sometimes. Why? You be needing something done with your horses, mister? My pa useda say I got a way with horses.” The hen squawked again, and Brian stroked her on the head.

  “I don’t know. I might be needing a messenger boy.” Adam suddenly felt certain he could find use for a messenger boy. “Do you know where Willard’s Hotel is?”

  “Gor! That’s a big place. Fancy.” Brian’s bright green eyes had gone wide. “Aye, I know where ’tis.”

  “Can you call there today at noon? And at six o’clock? Ask the doorman if Mr. Quinn left you any message.”

  “Mr. Quinn. Who’s that? Is that you, mister? Aye, I can do that!” The hen protested once more, but Brian didn’t pause to soothe her ruffled feathers this time. “Wait till I tell Mam!”

  “I’ll leave word for you with the doorman,” Adam said, then continued on to his destination.

  Now that he knew where to go, it wasn’t difficult to find the correct alley. As Brian had indicated, Great Eternity Church was near the corner of the street. A white clapboard building, it boasted a large cross perched on the peak of its roof and two small windows on either side of the front door, which was accessed by five steps off the ground. The church, at least, didn’t appear ready to blow over in a gust of wind—unlike far too many of the other buildings he’d seen.

  Dr. Hilton had told him to go around to the back of the church, and Adam discovered four more steps—this time leading from ground level down to an entrance. Once at the bottom, standing in a small earthen entryway, he knocked at the whitewashed plank door. It rattled in its hinges, but seemed solid.

  “Yes. Come in,” called a voice.

  Adam did as he was bid, and found himself in a spacious cellar. It was cool and would have been dark had it not been lit by at least a dozen lamps and candles.

  Dr. Hilton looked up from where he stood, next to a table that held Custer Billings’s body. “You’re here,” the doctor said, making no effort to hide his surprise.

  The man wore an oiled-canvas butcher’s apron to protect his clothing, and his sleeves were rolled halfway up his generous biceps. A wary look still lingered in Hilton’s eyes, but he gave a sharp gesture with his chin for Adam to come in.

  “I said I’d come early,” Adam replied, stepping across the threshold into the cellar-turned-morgue.

  It was an open space with no dividing walls except a single curtain that could be used to block off part of the room for privacy. The curtain was pulled back, exposing what probably passed for a small examination room as needed. But Hilton wasn’t working in that area; he was standing at a long table in the center of the room.

  Kerosene lamps had been arranged throughout the room, hanging from beams in the low ceiling, arranged on tables and shelves, and one was even suspended on a shepherd’s hook–like metal rod directly over Hilton’s workstation. This array of lights illuminated the room nearly as well as noon sun on the prairie, though with a hazy golden glow instead of a clean, sharp light. Shadows spilled into the dark perimeter of the space. The floor was hard packed dirt and there were two small, high windows that allowed for a cross-breeze, praise God.

  Custer Billings’s naked body was arranged on the table, and he was covered from the bottom of his rib cage to his feet by a dark blanket. His ice-white skin, loose and sallow from a life of leisure, was unmarked except for the two knife wounds: a shallow one on the left side of his rib cage below the underside of a fleshy breast, and in the gut directly below the sternum.

  The scent of blood was in the air, but it was faint. It mingled with that of the earth that surrounded the room, along with an antiseptic essence that made Adam’s nose want to pinch.

  “Early for most of your—for most people,” Hilton corrected himself quickly, “is hardly before noon.”

  “Want me to come back on account of it being early?” Adam asked mildly.

  “Oh, no, sir,” Hilton said, injecting a deferent tone in his voice. “Not at all. It took longer than I thought to get the lamps set up—had to borrow a bunch of ’em—and I didn’t get very far with my examination yet. I didn’t want you to feel as if you wasted your time coming all the way here.”

  “Don’t let that concern you. What else would I do at this hour of the day—seeing as all of my kind are still sleeping,” Adam said in a dry voice.

  Hilton glanced up warily, then seemed to relax when he realized Adam was making a joke. “His clothing and shoes are there, if you want to look through them. I’ve just finished
an external examination and am beginning the internal one.”

  “Did you find anything helpful?” Adam picked up one of the lamps farthest from the table and brought it with him as he walked over to Billings’s personal effects, which included the dress coat found in the closet. He wondered if there would be oil smudges on one of the man’s shoes.

  “So far, no, sir. I found no unusual marks on his body other than the two stab wounds in the torso. No recent bruises or other cuts. And the lividity—the way the blood sinks to the ground inside the body once it’s dead—is right for him being found on the floor there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there isn’t any sign that Mr. Billings was killed somewhere else, and then later moved to where he was found. If he had been killed somewhere and then left there for a time—at least for an hour or two—then brought to the dance hall, the way the blood pooled in his body might have been different.”

  “Why would someone kill him somewhere else and then move him to such a busy, public place?” Adam mused aloud.

  “I don’t claim to understand why people do what they do. And I don’t believe anyone would have done it—though I suppose I could come up with a good yarn as to why if I wanted—but, anyway, the examination confirms that it didn’t happen. He was killed there—or at least very nearby and left in the anteroom shortly afterward.”

  Adam nodded. All right. He could appreciate the man’s thoroughness. “Was there anything else you noticed?”

  “Mr. Billings was wearing gloves, so if he fought or struggled with anyone, there wouldn’t be skin, hair, or any other remnants beneath his nails.”

  “There were some hairs on the fingertips of his gloves.” Adam set down his lamp on the table where the clothing had been laid out. But the broad brim of his hat cast a wide shadow over the items, obstructing his light. He removed it and set it aside. “They were short, light brown hairs. Looked like they got stuck to his fingertips with something sticky.” He dug inside his knapsack for the envelope where he’d slid the ones he’d found last night adhering to Billings’s gloves.