On Secret Service (30 page)

Stone angels and seraphs and crosses surrounded him in the Shockoe Hill burying ground. Libby inmates said Tim Webster lay up here in an unmarked grave. When Lon arrived at half past three, he walked the pauper's section for ten minutes, a necessary gesture of respect to a brave operative.

Gravediggers had interred someone earlier in the day; he passed the new grave on his way to the southwest side of the cemetery. There he laid the bundle wrapped in butcher paper on the ledge of a monument. Before collecting the commandant's laundry he'd delivered a pouch of reports to the provost marshal's office. Under citywide martial law enforced by General Winder, he had to be off the streets by dark, even with a proper pass.

His vantage point allowed him to watch traffic coming up both Second and Third streets. A mist had settled; the James and the canal hid in a low cloud of it. Lamps burned like hundreds of cat's eyes. His gray sack coat with all but one button missing was none too warm.

Church bells rang four. The deep notes reverberated in the mist. He rubbed the cold metal of the manacle with his right thumb, back and forth, back and forth. What if she didn't come? Didn't understand the message he handed to the black servant?

A stray cat wandered among the tombstones, meowing at him. He told it to scat. When he glanced down the hill again, he saw a buggy climbing Second Street. The driver was a woman, alone. Although a gray veil on her black hat blurred her features, he knew it was Margaret.

He stepped from behind a monument crowned by a marble Christ with outstretched hands. He waved. The buggy careened around the corner. How fine she looked in her black riding habit and yellow gloves!

He ran to tie the horse to one of the iron posts along the curb. He helped her down, excited by the rich heaviness of her figure, the almost shy smile he saw when she raised her veil. Her wide mouth was a deep cherry red.

“I knew you sent the note, but when I saw you, I thought I'd made an awful mistake. I thought you were someone else.” She touched his beard.

“Makes me look like a hundred other soldiers. That's why I grew it.”

She saw the manacle. “What's this? Are you a prisoner?”

“Libby. I'll explain. Let's move away from the road.”

She slipped her arm through his. The touch of her breast aroused him. He led her deeper into the cemetery. Mausoleums designed as small Greek temples screened them from the streets.

“Do you still hate me because of who I work for, Margaret?”

“If I did, would I be doing this? It's risky for a woman to be seen here alone.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Don't you know? I couldn't help myself. I had to see you again.”

He smiled. “Are you happy?”

“Don't ask that question.”

Gently he stroked her cheek with his thumb; felt dampness. “I have to know. You broke my heart when you said you were going to marry McKee.”

“I was desperate. I was at the bottom of the well. Baker would have kept me in the Old Capitol forever. Donal was able to get me out of jail and out of Washington. There was no other way.”

“But are you happy?”

“Oh, Lon. Who is allowed to be happy in these times? I made an arrangement. Donal's fond of me. He likes the way I look and dress. I'm useful. He is, shall we say, friendly with a great many women. But he couldn't introduce most of them as a hostess in his home. An arrangement.” She rested her hand on the front of his old coat. “Don't press the matter. I wish you'd hold me.”

He wrapped her in his arms, pulling her tight to his chest and kissing her throat above the black collar of her riding habit. Behind them, unseen in the mist, gravediggers hailed one another; the voices were moving away, no threat.

He kissed her mouth. The kiss was long, deep, as painful as it was blissful.

“How did you know I was in Richmond?” she said. He told her of seeing the news item. “I want to hear all about you. How you got here. Is it secret work for the Yankees?”

“It was.” He drew her to a monument with a wide base where they could sit, hidden from the road. He rested his manacled hand on her knee as he told the story of the capture, Sledge's death, besting Griff, then the slow process of earning the trust of Lieutenant Turner.

“Is there a possibility you'll be exchanged?”

“I suppose. I've reported my whereabouts to Washington.”

“How?”

“I have a contact in town. I shouldn't say any more. How long will you be in Richmond?”

“I don't know.”

“Will you go back to New York?”

“I think so. I loathe the idea. I don't suppose it matters. Wherever we are, Donal can always find willing ladies.”

“You've been married what—four months? Are you saying he's already deceiving you?”

“I knew Donal's nature when I accepted his proposal. I didn't want to rot for years in that damned prison.”

“Well, it's a hell of a situation.” They were silent a moment. “Margaret.” She turned to him. “I love you.”

“Oh, please don't say—”

“I love you.”

Her dark eyes glistened with tears. “And I love you.”

She pressed her gloved hands to his damp cheeks, caressing him with her mouth and her tongue and her trembling body. When she pulled back, she dabbed her eyes, then lowered her veil.

“You mustn't think of me anymore. You'll forget me if you just try.”

“Forget you? You're part of my existence, part of myself. You've been in every prospect I've ever seen since we met. To the last hour of my life, you remain part of my character.”

Her eyes grew round as she realized what he was paraphrasing. “That's Pip, isn't it? When Estella wants him to forget her.”

“I memorized it. Occasionally we're allowed books in prison. Good-hearted local people bring them. Prisoner's aid, it's called. I reread
Great Expectations
last month. What Pip feels for Estella when she marries Drummle is the way I feel about you. Dickens said it perfectly. We can go apart, but you'll never leave me. Never.”

She gripped his hands with such ferocity, his fingers hurt. They heard horses.

He sprang up. She pressed against his shoulder, straining to see the black carriage coming up Third Street carrying two men. A third, a civilian, followed on horseback. The carriage's standing top hid the driver and the passenger in shadow. Mist wrapped the brass side lamps in spectral halos. The carriage looked evil, like some devil's equipage driving up from hell.

Margaret whispered, “That's Donal's phaeton.” She saw Lon's expression. “Oh, God, you don't think that I…?”

“No, no,” he said, guilty and ashamed; he'd thought exactly that. “Did anyone else see the note?”

“Only our house girl, Eudora. The sealing wax was intact when she gave it to me.”

“Wax can be melted and sealed up again, with no trace of a break.”

“Then she must have read it. The girl dislikes me. She told Donal for spite.”

The phaeton wheeled around the corner, rocking to a halt behind the buggy. The horseman, a burly man in a frock coat and broad-brimmed planter's hat, dismounted to confer with the other two men. He raised his arm to point. Lon and Margaret had been spotted.

Margaret pushed him. “Run.”

“What will you—?”

“I'll work my way out of it, don't worry. Sweetheart—
run!
”

He spun and dashed into the misty graveyard. He should have known he stood little chance on foot, but he wanted to draw the men away from her. He heard a horse galloping. The booted and spurred rider pursued him through the tombstones as though chasing quarry in a foxhunt.

He ran faster, arms pumping, breath hissing through his teeth. The rider caught him easily, pulling a revolver from a holster tied to his leg. “Stop or I'll put a bullet in your back.”

Lon skidded into an oak tree, scraping his nose on the bark.

“Turn. Raise your hands.” The man's face was florid; a gold front tooth gleamed. “Now walk ahead of me, to Mr. McKee and Mr. Cridge.”

“Who are you?”

“Parsons is the name. My partner Humboldt Cridge and I are agents of General John Winder, Provost Marshal of Richmond.”

The man who ran the prisons—and dealt with spies.

 

Lon followed the trail of torn sod left by the horse. Parsons walked his mount, resting his revolver on his thigh. Lon passed Margaret where he'd left her. Thank God he couldn't see her terror or confusion behind the veil; it would have destroyed him.

Donal McKee waited with his phaeton, his thumbs in the pockets of his embroidered waistcoat. His passenger was examining the laundry bundle. He was a bland sort, about forty, with a round, ruddy face appropriate to a schoolteacher, a choirmaster, a kindly relative in a Victorian novel. When he lifted his hand to adjust his derby, he revealed a hideous scar that ran from the base of his thumb all the way to his cuff.

McKee called out to his wife. “Please wait there until we're finished.” He was so controlled, it was impossible to gauge the depth of his anger. The man in the derby looked Lon up and down.

“Hummy Cridge, sir. Provost marshal's office.” His voice was soft, even soothing. Behind little round spectacles, his tawny eyes looked older, colder, than the rest of him. “Do you have a pass to roam about the city?”

Lon produced it. Cridge studied it. “The signature is General Winder's. The pass is issued to Albion Rogers. You are Rogers?”

“Yes, Private Albion Rogers, Heintzelman's Third Corps, First Div—” Cridge's arm lashed forward like a striking snake. His fist snapped Lon's head to one side.

“Now, sir, that's not true at all, is it?”

McKee said, “I told you, his name's Price. My wife said that much after we met him in Washington. He signed the name Price to the note.”

“Yes, sir, I saw that,” Cridge agreed. “You're positive it's the same person?”

“No doubt of it. He was on police duty at Lincoln's inauguration. At least I think so. He made regular circuits in the crowd. Kept track of people. I saw him confer with another man who did the same thing. I'm sure he's here under false colors.”

Cridge looked sad. “‘They that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same.' Job, fifth chapter.”

Lon said, “It's the fourth chapter. Eighth verse.”

“Well, what have we here, a biblical scholar?” Cridge said cheerfully. He struck Lon again, rocking him on his heels. “A man who knows his Bible will hang as easily and speedily as the heathen. ‘Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.' Do you know which psalm that's from?”

“Up your ass, you reb bastard.”

Cridge's face turned the color of plums. He signaled Parsons, who stepped forward, reversed his revolver, and hammered the butt on Lon's skull. Lon dropped to his knees. Margaret cried out. McKee smiled.

Cridge pinched Lon's chin in his fingers. “I want to know why you're wearing Confederate gray and a prison manacle. I want to know whose laundry that is. I want to know if there's a Union spy ring in Richmond. My superiors and I have all the time we need to find out those things, and we will. Stand up.”

The Confederate White House at Twelfth and Clay was a pillared stucco mansion more gray than white. Lon was held for half an hour in a windowless upstairs room. Parsons guarded him with no overt animosity, saying only, “I wish you'd sit down,” when Lon paced. He agonized about Margaret. Would McKee punish her? If he hadn't been rash about writing the note—

A military aide opened the door. “The President is ready to see you.”

Lon and Parsons followed him to a modest office overlooking the lamplit city. A ticking shelf clock showed half-past six. In a visitor's chair in front of the President's desk, a handsome and burly officer of sixty or so regarded the prisoner with a hostile eye. From an engraving he'd seen, Lon recognized the provost marshal, Brigadier General John Winder, another West Point man who'd changed sides. On the Peninsula, soldiers had gossiped about Winder's son, an Army captain who'd arrived in Washington after the war began. Pinkerton wanted him to sign a loyalty oath. McClellan chose to send him back to duty in California.

The general's thick white hair swept down to his ears in elegantly combed waves. Even his own officers, Turner included, thought him harsh and inflexible. Whenever his name came up, someone usually recalled that his father had commanded troops that ran from the British in 1814, leaving Washington unprotected, to be sacked and burned.

Jefferson Davis pointed to an empty chair. “Please be seated, sir.” His reputation for courtesy was deserved.

“Thank you.” Lon eased into the chair. Davis's left eye had a cloudy film on it. His sour breath was apparent across the desk. He covered his mouth and belched softly as he studied a paper. Parsons lounged by tall bookcases. Cridge stood next to him with his derby pressed against his vest in a way that struck Lon as servile. He noticed a third civilian standing in a dark corner, arms folded. It was the bald man from the hallway at Libby.

Davis said, “You insist your name is Rogers, sir?”

“Private Albion Rogers, that's correct, sir.” Lon spoke up, trying not to appear frightened.

“A gentleman of excellent reputation has provided a different name. General Winder's detectives have a note which you delivered to the gentleman's house, signed with the same last name. You still deny a dual identity?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I admire your courage, though you'll find it misspent. I suspect you're an operative of General McClellan's chief of secret service, Pinkerton.”

Harshly Winder said, “That won't do you a penny's worth of good if you're entertaining thoughts of rescue by means of exchange. General McClellan has been relieved.”

“Yes, sir, I've heard that.”

The bald man spoke from the shadows. “When a failure departs, so do his favorites. Week before last, we intercepted a letter sent across the lines with some exchange protocols and rosters. Your employer, Pinkerton, wrote to Pryce Lewis in Castle Thunder to say he was resigning his duties and returning to what he called his old stand in Chicago. We delivered the letter after reading it. Lewis will confirm its contents.”

Davis clasped veined hands on the desk. “It's futile to continue with your deception, Mr. Price. Two of your colleagues are presently confined in Castle Thunder, Mr. Lewis, and Mr. Scully. If you were sent among us by Mr. Pinkerton, those men will identify you. Make it easy on yourself. Give us a list of your contacts in Richmond, agents of the Union government, and we may be inclined toward leniency.”

Hummy Cridge coughed and immediately launched a fulsome apology, which Davis waved silent.

Lon said, “I can't do that, sir. I don't know what you mean by contacts. I deserted from the Union Army because I don't believe in their cause. I came to Richmond to stand with the Confederacy. That's my story.”

Davis looked pained. “Your side will lose, you know. Lincoln has no truly capable generals, only incompetents, or egotists such as McClellan. I know, I served with many of them in Mexico. We have the Military Academy's finest on our side, starting with General Lee. Our cause is just. We seek independence from the domination of Northern industrialists. Freedom to pursue our own way of life without interference from race-mixing hypocrites who will never permit freed Negroes to set foot in their parlors unless forced or bribed to do so.”

Lon didn't reply. What could he say? Davis was utterly wrong about slavery, though perhaps close to the mark on the issue of Northern hypocrisy. As for the generals, it seemed depressingly true. McClellan had been turned back by inferior numbers when Richmond was within in his grasp. It all seemed muddled, and of no importance compared to Margaret's plight, and his own culpability.

The clock ticked. Cridge started to cough again. Winder bristled. Davis's clear right eye picked up tiny reflections of the gaslight. He spread his hands over the desk. “Gentlemen, I'm afraid this is pointless. Mr. Price, you will regret you refusal to cooperate. Castle Thunder isn't the most comfortable of accommodations. Mr. Miller, please take him away.” He reached for a folio of papers, signaling the end of the interview.

Lon's ears rang.
Miller?

The bald man limped across the carpet, seized Lon's arm, pulled him out of the chair. Five minutes later they were in a closed carriage rattling away from Capitol Square.

 

In her bedroom on Church Hill, Margaret watched the rain. It rivered off the roof and dispelled the mist. She was barefoot, wearing only her black dressing gown ornamented with flying cranes, in the Japanese style.

The terrible scene at the graveyard had ended when Winder's detectives took Lon away in the phaeton. Donal drove her home in the buggy. He said not a single word. As they arrived on Church Hill, he handed her a black umbrella. After she alighted, he drove off. Undoubtedly she'd hear from him later. It was an awareness, not fear. Her fear was for Lon out there in the dark with Winder's thugs.

At her dressing table she took a brush to her long dark hair. Usually the routine pleased her; tonight it was mechanical. Her dressing gown fell open; the mirror reflected the high round tops of her breasts.

Footsteps in the hall alerted her to Donal's arrival. He entered without knocking. His English dressing gown, burnt orange silk with a quilted collar and tasseled belt, fit him perfectly; no surprise, given what he paid for clothes. He smelled of talc and some oily preparation glistening in his curly hair.

Donal sat on the end of the bed. She started to speak. He raised his hand.

“Let me be clear with you, Margaret. I don't care about the nature of that Yankee chap's work, or who his employer may be. I do care about whether you've dallied with him.”

“If you mean has he taken me to bed, no.”

“Not that you wouldn't like it, do you mean?”

“I care for him, Donal.”

“More than you care for your husband.”

She looked at him without flinching. She didn't need to answer.

Thoughtfully he said, “The event that occurred today embarrassed me severely. It will continue to do so as long as we're in Richmond. A man can't tolerate something like that. Accounts must be balanced. One misdemeanor, one punishment. Do you understand?”

“Are you saying that if I don't do it again, you won't punish me again?”

“You're a bright girl. How a bright girl could make such a dreadful mistake eludes me. I suppose we're all victims of our humanity from time to time.”

“You certainly are, Donal.”

He didn't like that. He picked up her yellow-dyed gloves from the corner of the dressing table. “Charming. I believe they'd fit me.” He snugged one on, then the other. Her heart raced. The sense of threat was sharp.

“I don't want to do this, Margaret. I regret it.”

“Then why—”

The last thing she saw was his yellow fist flying toward her eyes. When she woke, naked on the bed with one eye swollen shut and her face and breasts hurting, he was straddling her. His face contorted as he thrust into her and brutally completed the punishment.

 

Their destination was Eighteenth and Cary, a block from Libby. The lights of shops and hotels along the way flashed over the faces of Hummy Cridge and the bald man seated opposite Lon. Rain pelted the carriage and puddled in the street. Despite the chill, Lon was sweating.

He speculated about his captors. Cridge he assessed as lower class, with pretensions. The man relished brutality and could no doubt always dredge up some biblical phrase or patriotic cant to justify it. The other man, Miller, struck him as brighter, more calculating, therefore more dangerous. Miller sat awkwardly, his crippled leg stretched across the width of the coach. Lon thought of Miller as the staff general, Cridge one of his field officers. They were a pair to fear.

Miller studied his buffed nails. “Don't imagine you'll get out of this, Price. I'm certain you work for Pinkerton, or did. His ruffians killed my father in Baltimore.” Lon sat very still.

“Pinkerton also imprisoned my sister, the lady with whom you're apparently acquainted. Since your side locked her up, abused her, and made her suffer, we'll reciprocate, though with a slight difference. Margaret got out of prison. You'll rot there. Eh, Cridge?”

“'Deed he will, Mr. Miller. ‘Let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end.'”

“Every Sunday Mr. Cridge teaches in an evangelical church school,” Miller said. “Ah, here we are.”

Through the carriage window Lon saw the lights of three brick buildings comprising the notorious prison.

“Do you want a moment for a last look around?” Miller asked. “You won't be seeing Richmond again. Castle Thunder will likely be your last residence on earth.”