The First Assassin (25 page)

Lincoln roared at the punch line, slapped his knee, and rose from his seat. Mazorca did not quite grasp the point of the story, but he stood up too and understood he was being dismissed for good. Maybe that was the point.

Lincoln put a hand on his shoulder as they walked to the door. “You are a man of few words, Mr. Collins. That is probably a good quality in someone seeking out the loneliness of lighthouse work. You also seem to have a talent for riddles. I’ll see what I can do for you. Good day.”

Looking out the window for Hughes and Tate made Bennett feel helpless. Years ago, he would have led the pursuit of Portia and Joe. Now, every glance made him tense. This was no pursuit of ordinary fugitives. Portia and Joe had something in their possession that he desperately wanted to have returned.

Bennett tried to reason his way out his anxiety. The odds of these two slaves making it all the way to Washington were incredibly low. Even if they did make it, they might not arrive in time. Mazorca would strike at some point. Bennett did not know when or how, but he knew it would happen. Anything the slaves did after that would come too late. And even if by some miracle they made it to Washington and also made it in time to interfere with Mazorca, there was the very distinct possibility that nobody would take them seriously. They would have to convince the right people in government that their photograph contained important information. Yet they were nothing but a pair of runaway slaves who could not even write their names on a scrap of paper.

It was early in the afternoon, following a small lunch he had eaten alone in the dining room, when Bennett finally saw something. In the distance, a man on a horse turned onto the path leading up the manor. Behind him were three horses without riders. Was that Tate?

Bennett walked onto the porch. He saw that it definitely was his overseer. But why was Tate by himself? Where was Hughes? What was that big sack draped across the back of a horse? Its shape and size troubled him. His mood darkened as Tate approached the steps and stopped.

“What is going on here, Mr. Tate? Where is Mr. Hughes?”

“I have some very bad news to report, Mr. Bennett.” Tate explained what had happened.

When he was done, Bennett summarized what he had just heard: “So Hughes is hurt, Joe is dead, and Portia is missing. I presume this is Joe’s body you have here?”

“I thought we should bury it here at the plantation.”

“Remove the body from the horse immediately and put it on the ground right here.”

“I thought I would take it directly to the slave cemetery, sir, and gather Joe’s relations for a quick funeral. We really should get this body in the ground soon.”

“Did you hear me, Mr. Tate?” yelled Bennett. “Do it now.”

Tate was baffled by the request, but he and a slave lowered the body to the ground. The stiffness made it difficult to manipulate.

“Remove the wrappings,” commanded Bennett.

They uncovered Joe’s corpse. Its skin had assumed an ugly gray pallor. The stench was strong. Tate took a step back.

“Search the clothes.”

Tate was puzzled. “What am I looking for?”

“Just do it!”

The overseer knelt beside the corpse and began patting it. He stuck his hand in the pant pockets. From one he removed the crumbled remains of a biscuit. In another he found a small slingshot and several round stones. He placed these beside the body.

“Take them off.”

“Sir?”

“The clothes. Remove them from his body. I want them thoroughly searched.”

Tate did not move right away. He considered this a strange request. “It would help to know what you’re looking for,” he said.

“I know what I am looking for, and I will recognize it when I see it. That is all you need to know.”

Tate began to take off the clothes, piece by piece. The shirt was the hardest to remove, having become crusty with dried blood. The whole experience was humiliating. Tate not only resented having to perform this indecent chore. He also resented having to do it where a number of slaves could see him. This is a story that will spread fast, he thought. He worried about what this desecration would do to his reputation around the farm. Certainly it would not make things any easier for him.

When Joe’s naked body lay exposed before Bennett and it was clear that no more searching could be done, Tate looked up at his boss. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Damn it, Tate. He does not have what I want. You should have followed Portia.”

Bennett stormed up the steps to the manor. The door slammed shut behind him with a loud bang.

Nobody had moved from the scene. Tate took command. He ordered a slave to lead all but one of the horses to the stables. He told two others to dress Joe again, wrap him up, and put him on the back of the remaining horse. He sent a final slave to fetch a few shovels. When the body bag was in place and the shovels in everybody’s hands, Tate took the reins of the horse and began to walk to the slave cemetery. This was on the edge of Bennett’s property near the road. It was a fairly large section of land, having been in use for several generations. The graves were unmarked.

The most direct route from the manor required Tate to walk by the slave quarters. As he approached them, a crowd began to gather. They whispered among themselves. Before anybody called out to ask what had happened, Sally appeared on the scene. When she saw Tate, she dropped the pot she had been holding. It cracked when it hit the ground. Soup sprayed everywhere. She ran toward Tate. “Oh Lord, don’t let it be true,” she screamed. “Please don’t let it be true.”

But it was true. Joe had come home, and he would never leave again.

The cat startled Violet Grenier when it jumped onto her desk. She rubbed the black-and-white animal behind its ears, listening to it purr. “That’s a good boy, Calhoun,” she said, in a baby-talk voice. The cat was named after John Calhoun, the South Carolina politician who had served as a vice president, a cabinet officer, and a senator. He had died a decade earlier and since then had achieved an iconic status among Southern partisans. When the cat made an appearance at one of her parties, Grenier loved to tell her guests its name. She especially enjoyed teasing Northerners who stroked its fur. “See how easy it is to please him?” she would say. “That’s what I like about cats. They demand so little—just a bit of freedom.”

At the thought of this barbed comment, Grenier smiled and leaned back in her chair. She felt a cramp in her back and realized that she had been sitting for too long. It was time to take a break. She set down her pen and rose from the seat where she had composed letters for much of the afternoon. The most important of these letters had been the most difficult to write. She had saved it for last because she was unsure of what to say.

The adventure of the previous night, when she had followed the soldiers and their prisoners to the Treasury Department, had left her confused. One plot was now foiled. This was no loss. Yet she wondered exactly how it had been defeated. How much of the conspiracy was compromised? Would the prisoners talk to their captors? How much would they say? Would her acquaintance in New York become exposed? Would she find herself implicated?

If they mentioned visiting her, she could expect to face difficult questions. She could deny knowing them, or at least deny knowing their plans. The fact that she was a woman could prove advantageous—the chivalry of her interrogators might coax them into believing her professions of total innocence. She could confess to holding the Southern sympathies for which she was already well known. “But no lady in my position would associate herself with the schemes of ruffians,” she said grandly, as if practicing for the occasion. Calhoun looked up at her and meowed. “I’m glad you approve,” she said. She stroked his neck.

Her wiles might help, but Grenier appreciated that perhaps she was falling into some danger. What were her choices? Leaving Washington was an option, though one she did not want to take. She was needed here. A man could put on a uniform and fight in a battle. Grenier knew that wars were not always won by strength of arms. Generals needed reliable information almost as much as their troops needed ammunition—and Grenier understood that she was in a unique position to provide information about federal activity that perhaps nobody else could obtain. Men were willing to die defending the rights of the South. Grenier was determined to help them win in any way she could. This cause was bigger than any man—or any woman.

A Bible rested on her desk, propped open to Matthew. It helped her compose her letter to New York: “A stranger recently told me that ‘Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction,’” she had written. “Success, however, is a strait gate—and the one he had hoped to pass through is now shut.” She thought perhaps it said enough without saying too much. It would mean little to anyone but its recipient, and to him it would convey an important piece of news. How he used this information would be his own concern. For her part, Grenier felt that he at least deserved to possess it.

She tucked the letter into an envelope and sealed it. Her thoughts turned to Mazorca, as they had done so many times since the day before. She had given herself to him freely—something she had not done with a man in quite a while. Her trysts always involved some kind of transaction, as she sought to extract a fact or obtain a favor. Mazorca was different. She had wanted nothing from him but the pleasure of his company, and she indeed had found it pleasurable.

Mazorca had not said anything about a second visit. There may not be a reason for one, she realized—or at least not a professional reason. They had not spoken directly about why he was in Washington. Yet she knew what task lay before him and understood the importance of discretion. He needed to keep a low profile. Still, he had given her his address at Tabard’s, for use in an emergency. Or was it an invitation?

Grenier gazed out her window. Her eyes settled on a man standing at the corner across the street, in front of St. John’s Church. He seemed to be doing nothing in particular, as if he were waiting on a friend. A loiterer was not remarkable, especially with Lafayette Park nearby. Yet something about him looked familiar. Had she seen him before? She thought that perhaps she had spotted him several hours earlier. That big mustache was hard to miss. Mustaches were fashionable these days. Only the oldest men, impervious to the latest trends, seemed able to shirk them. Mazorca, too—that was one of the things she liked about him. Yet the whiskers of the man outside her window achieved an astonishing thickness.

“Calhoun,” she said, turning away from the window and toward the cat. “Let’s keep an eye out for this fellow.”

Portia did not know how much time had passed when she woke up, but the shadows had grown long and the sun was plunging into the horizon. For a few minutes she did not move. The driver sat just a few feet away from her. She had not gotten a good look at him before hopping into his cart and burrowing beneath his rice sacks. If he had detected her, she probably would have known by now.

Could she trust him? All Portia could see was the back of his head. The gray flecks hinted at someone getting on in his years. He was humming a familiar tune, but Portia could not quite place it. The simple fact that he was alone and far away from his plantation suggested a strong loyalty to his master and a demonstrated ability to travel distances and always come back. Portia knew that some slaves would take an interest in helping her make it to Charleston, as Jeremiah had done. She also knew that others would seize opportunities to win the favor of whites by betraying runaways. She worried that this man was such a slave.

As Portia squirmed out from under the rice sacks, the soreness in her feet rushed up her legs. She winced. Sleep had provided a reprieve but not healing relief. Her blistered feet seemed to hurt worse than before.

The sun continued to sink. Portia lifted herself up and immediately recognized the sight in front of the wagon. She had seen it before when she was just a girl: the huddled mass of buildings, a skyline dominated by church steeples, and water in the distance. They were minutes away from entering Charleston.

The slow pace of the wagon made her anxious. Portia knew her real destination lay well within the city. As buildings began to appear on both sides of her, she wondered when she should make a move. Her head told her to slip out of the wagon soon. Her feet urged her to stay put.

The farther the wagon went into the city, the more crowded the streets would become. She started to hear voices and other vehicles passing them. It was important to get away without being noticed by the driver or anybody else. How long could she wait?

The wagon made a turn, and still Portia didn’t move. As the sky grew darker, she kept telling herself that she had to do something. The noises from outside the wagon began to fade. They were in a quieter part of the city now. She heard the driver’s humming again. She knew the tune from somewhere, but the words continued to elude her. Suddenly, the wagon stopped. So did the humming. Had she waited too long?

“Get out.”

She sat up straight, not sure where the voice had come from. The wagon was on some kind of side street. All was quiet. There were no people around except for her and the driver. He still faced away from her, but the command only could have come from one place.

“Get out before I change my mind.”

It was definitely the driver talking to her. Portia crawled over the rice sacks to the rear of the cart and lowered herself to the ground. She did this with care, but her feet still burned with pain. She limped to the side of the street and propped herself against the wall of a building. The wagon started to move again. The driver turned and nodded. She only saw his face for a moment, and there was kindness in it.

“Good luck.”

The wagon traveled another block, turned, and vanished from sight. Had he known the whole time that she was there? She could not be sure—her deep sleep had lasted the better part of the day. Now it hardly mattered. He was gone, and it was a detail. She had to find her way to Nelly’s, by the Battery. It was at the end of a long street that cut through most of the city, she remembered. She hoped she could find it.