The Lincoln Deception (20 page)

“We will have no conversation that ends with parting.” He placed his free hand over hers.

“You will say different when I've finished.” They had reached a stretch of large homes. She paused and perched on a low wall at the corner of H Street and Fifteenth Street. He chose to stand facing her. The moonlight fell lightly on her fine features. “You may recall the name Ella Turner, or Nelly Starr.”

“Of course. She was Booth's . . . companion. She tried to kill herself after the assassination.”

“My mother. And Wilkes was my father.” Fraser inclined his head forward to conceal his features. “My mother was overcome with despair when she learned what he had done, but she soon regained her balance and set off on a difficult path. My Aunt Asia, Creston's mother, learned of my existence some years after and sent funds to help us. A former . . . companion . . . to a great villain does not have very excellent prospects. And those prospects are not enhanced by having a child out of wedlock.”

Eliza's voice had become soft. Fraser felt his face go slack with disbelief. Could this be true? He sat heavily next to her.

“She claimed,” Eliza said, “to be the widow of a soldier, which was a common thing then. Still, my mother was always afraid of being exposed. We moved often. She instructed me that this was a secret few people would be grateful to know. I was twelve when Mother died of a fever. Before she died, she gave me Aunt Asia's address and told me she was a kind woman who might help. Aunt Asia took me into her home as a sort of servant, but soon I was one of the family. Creston and his brother became my brothers. And in that family, my family, everyone takes a turn on stage. I was not a bad actress, or so some said. Perhaps I did inherit that from my father. My husband, though, preferred that I abandon the stage, so I did.”

When she fell silent, he groped for words. “I do understand why this was difficult to talk about.” His hands felt glued to the insides of his pockets. “It is, though, a good bit to digest.”

“My husband and I—he knew all this—we had a quiet, happy life until I lost him, too, to a streetcar accident. A preposterous way to lose a husband. Creston tried to bring me back to the stage, but I had no more passion for it. To be truthful, I became subject to a paralyzing stage fright. So I've been the company's business manager.”

“And then I came along.”

“Yes, a dear, earnest man came to me from Ohio and seemed determined to prove my father not quite so black a monster, perhaps the dupe of blacker ones. Someday I hope you'll forgive me, and I hope I've not compromised your effort.” She turned her head and looked up at him with glistening eyes. “I meant you no harm. I didn't expect for us to become such good friends.”

“Eliza, for me it is so much more than that!”

“I know, Jamie. And I'm to blame for that, too.” She placed a hand on his arm. “Please, walk me back to the hotel.”

They passed down Fifteenth Street in silence, glimpsing the White House to the west as they neared the classical immensity of the Treasury building. In the quiet hotel lobby, Eliza said a quick good-bye. He stood for at least a minute, perhaps more, unable to order his thoughts.

What in heaven's name had he gotten himself into? How could he be in love with the bastard child of John Wilkes Booth? It would be like marrying into the Borgias or the family of Jack the Ripper. She had deceived him entirely, never breathing a word of it—like any experienced actress, wise to the debauched ways of the theater. Was she just feigning that she cared for him so he would persist in this investigation and somehow rehabilitate her unforgivable father? And yet how could he be thinking this way about her? He had taken the measure of her character and looked deep into her eyes. He knew in his heart that she was true. She couldn't counterfeit the feelings she showed for him. It couldn't all be the artifice of the trained performer.

Could it?

He was in far over his depth.

When he reached the sidewalk, he shrugged out of the rented dinner jacket and flexed his shoulders. Somewhere in this rotten town he should be able to find some whiskey. He set off to do so.

“S
o, are you going to curl up and die on me?” Cook placed his face a few inches from Fraser's. “We don't have time for this mooncalf business.”

Fraser, unshaven, was in his underwear. He'd spent the night in an armchair before the window, staring into the alley behind the hotel. He cradled an empty bourbon bottle. He had drunk it all without ever feeling drunk. The hammering in his head felt like a hangover, or just fatigue. He might have slept part of the night, but he couldn't remember it.

Cook shook his head. “I figured you for someone who'd back out when things got rugged. This isn't even the rugged part, and there you go.”

Fraser could not sort through his stew of feelings—a carousel of betrayal, longing, outrage, and simple shock. He wished Cook would stop yammering. Finish their investigation of Booth? Wasn't he quite the investigator—falling in love with John Wilkes Booth's daughter? Correction: Booth's illegitimate daughter. Merely thinking it felt like treason. He was supposed to solve historical puzzles, not become part of one. He should never have left Cadiz.

All through the night, as his mind cycled through his problems, he felt certain about only one thing. He loved Eliza Scott, or whatever her name should be. He had no idea, however, what to do about it. He was aware of Cook pacing behind him, the man's suppressed rage penetrated even Fraser's miasmic mood. Fraser cleared his throat.

“You actually going to talk?” Cook continued to pace.

“Simmer down. Sit there on the bed. I'll tell you.”

He started with Eliza. No point talking about anything else. Even if it was Eliza's secret, Cook was entitled to know. Fraser drew a perverse satisfaction from Cook's stunned silence. But it didn't last long.

“C'mon, Jamie. Who knows whose daddy is whose in this world? 'Specially when your mother, well, knows a lot of men.”

Fraser lunged at Cook, grabbing him around the shoulders and jamming him back on the bed. He reared back and cocked a fist. Before he could throw a punch, Cook gripped his hand. Even lying on his back, the man was powerful. Fraser lunged again, leaning all his weight on Cook's uplifted arm, driving it down, but he couldn't free his hand. Cook hugged him close with his other arm. Fraser twisted and pushed with all his strength. His legs pawed the floor for traction, then pushed off a chair, tipping it over with a crash.

“Whoa, whoa, big man,” Cook said, his voice strained by effort, not anger. “Dumb thing to say. Didn't mean anything. Miss Eliza's a fine woman.”

Suddenly, Fraser was exhausted. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to remember where he was or what he knew. He went limp, then rolled off the bed.

“You need some sleep, son,” Cook said. Fraser lay down on his own bed with a whump.

 

“Rise and shine.” Cook put some melody into the greeting. He had waited as long as he could, but it was noon. He had to get Fraser sobered up, fed, cleaned, and halfway making sense by four o'clock, when he was supposed to meet Townsend. That meeting could be dangerous. Those Sons of Liberty were bound to be close by. Fraser had to cover some ground before he'd be fit to deal with Barstow's thugs.

With cajoling, threats, sympathy, and ridicule, Cook stirred Fraser to a mostly functional condition. When Fraser's hands began to shake, Cook took over shaving him, leaning over from behind so the strokes would be like the ones he used to shave himself. By the end of an hour, Cook was unwrapping two large sandwiches he had purchased at a nearby shop. He set one before Fraser. Fraser ate only the bread and drank glass after glass of water. Cook decided that was good enough, under the circumstances.

Fraser scowled. “Speed, that stuff before—”

“We need to stay on the problem before us. Tell me about your old ladies' party. And about what you're going to do with Townsend.”

“Right.” Fraser bit off some bread and chewed it deliberately. He swallowed with equal care. He sipped water and cleared his throat.

When he finished relating his conversations with the old ladies, he said that he considered two points to be established. First, General Grant definitely was a target of the conspiracy, though they couldn't be sure how the conspirators intended. They might have meant to kill him but gave up when he left Washington. Or perhaps one of them—O'Laughlen or even John Surratt—followed him on his train and meant to kill him there but lost heart.

“Don't see how that was what Mrs. Surratt told John Bingham,” Cook said. “Trying to kill Grant wasn't any secret; Bingham accused O'Laughlen of it during the trial. And news of a failed attempt to kill Grant wouldn't have hurt the republic. Would've made Grant more popular.”

“I agree,” Fraser said. “It also would make Mrs. Surratt and her friends more guilty. In fact, it might even point to her own darling boy, John.” After a pause, Fraser started again. “I also think the cotton traders, beginning with Julius Spencer and Samuel Barstow, were behind Booth. They must have planned to move a mountain of cotton to Northern and English mills as soon as Lafayette Foster became president. They funded Booth. They must have given him his plans.”

“Mrs. Surratt could have told Mr. Bingham about Julius Spencer,” Cook said. “He was kin to Lafayette Foster, the man that Spencer and Barstow were trying to make the next president. She could have heard from Booth or her son about that Foster business, about Spencer backing Booth. Both of them passed through New York, probably met with Spencer. And Bingham thought this threatened the republic because those cotton men knew who they were acting for. It could've been any number of Democrats, even General McClellan.”

“Wait a minute. By disclosing this secret to Mr. Bingham,” Fraser said, “wasn't Mrs. Surratt taking the chance that he would prosecute all of those Northerners who were supporting the South?”

“That's exactly it. Don't you see?” Cook grew more animated. “That's what she wanted. Mr. Bingham was a real firebrand. Townsend called him a zealot. You've read the transcript. Every day of the trial, he was putting Jefferson Davis at the center of the conspiracy. Mr. Bingham's the one you'd expect to be most enraged that Northerners like Spencer were involved in killing the president. In the moment of victory, she wanted to set the victors to tearing at each other's throats. She was aiming to be like Samson pulling the temple down on herself and on her enemies, too.”

“But Mr. Bingham didn't fall for it.” Fraser took a bit of bread.

“You know,” Cook started, “something started eating at me after you left Chestertown and while I was coming over here. We've put a whole lot of stock in what Bingham said while he was dying, about what happened thirty-five years before then. Well, what if he got it scrambled up when he talked to you? Maybe it was Stanton who told
him
something about Mrs. Surratt. Maybe Lewis Paine told him something about John Surratt. The man may have been delirious, or just not remembering too good, being old and sick and all.”

“I was there,” Fraser said. “He was in his right mind.”

“I figured you'd say that. What if he was just wrong back in 1865? What if he made the wrong decision? What if it made no difference to the republic whether he revealed or didn't reveal what Mary Surratt told him? The man wasn't perfect, we know that. He put those perjured witnesses on the stand. We could be running around risking our necks for nothing.”

“I don't think so.” Fraser took a second. “Look, I've had those thoughts, too. And if you want out of this thing, I understand. But I know the man he was and I know what he said.”

Cook nodded his head. “Okay, okay, at least we know what you want from the meeting with Townsend.”

“What?”

“Proof. Something I can write in the
Ohio Eagle
that will get the attention of everyone in America.”

“You can write what we know. We've learned a lot. And we've got Barstow's memorandum book—well, we had it.”

“Sure, I can write it, but I can't say where I found it all out. That I stole Barstow's book? He'll deny it was his, and now it's gone, a pile of ash somewhere. That you interviewed three old ladies? Talking to you at a party's one thing, but that Chandler woman's not looking to remind everyone that she loved John Wilkes Booth. Mrs. Foster? If she knows what we're up to, she'll never say anything to dirty her husband's memory. The world will think I'm as crazy as the ones who say it was the Pope. No, thank you. You need to get us some proof.”

Fraser made no answer. He looked lost in his own thoughts. Cook kept on. “And another thing. We can tie Booth to Barstow and Spencer. Fine. But we're still weak on who was behind them. You don't think a couple of cotton hustlers were really the root of this whole thing, do you? In 1865, Barstow wasn't any tycoon. He was a young officer in a losing army. Spencer was a cotton man at a time when the cotton business was nearly dead. Those weren't men with big money or the connections to make this all happen. No, sir, there was someone back of them. So for both of those things—for proof, and for who was back of Barstow and Spencer—that's what we need Townsend for. And he's just the ticket for both.”

“Or maybe he's my ticket out of this world.”

“That's why we need to plan out how this thing's going to work. Let's talk about Townsend.”

“That's another thing. It was only for a second, but I could swear it was him at that party last night. How could he have gotten there?”

“I've got no idea,” Cook said, “but I think I know where Townsend's going to take you this afternoon.” He had visited the pricier stables in the city's central district, asking about the fine pair of matched bays that pulled Townsend's carriage. Cook had claimed that his boss wanted to purchase the horses. It wasn't long before he found a stableman who knew and admired that team. Cook traced them to a house on the far side of the White House, on I Street past Seventeenth. The house, Cook reported, was owned by James “Pete” Longstreet, Robert E. Lee's corps commander.

“Well, I'll be,” Fraser said. “After all those denials, every one of them saying the Confederacy had nothing to do with the killing of President Lincoln. And where does this trail lead to but to Longstreet, who sat at the top of the Southern army.”

“Sure, but why,” Cook asked for what felt like the hundredth time, “did Bingham think that news about Spencer and Barstow would threaten the nation? The way I see it, that man Stanton's at the center of it. He's the one who Bingham goes to after Mrs. Surratt makes her confession, and he's the one who persuades Bingham to keep it a secret. Maybe Stanton did it to keep himself in office, like Townsend said.”

Fraser frowned. “Why would we believe what Townsend said? Also, that would mean Stanton either hoodwinked Mr. Bingham into keeping mum or Mr. Bingham was in on it. He was too smart to be hoodwinked and too honest to cover something up for Stanton.”

“So,” Cook said, “I've been trying this one out. Say it was to preserve the peace by protecting someone, someone like Robert E. Lee. Lee's no hero in my eyes. The man slaughtered a few hundred thousand men to preserve slavery, but he did surrender all his troops when he finally got beat for real and true. He didn't take to the hills and keep the war going on and on, didn't keep on solely to bleed the North to death. Maybe Bingham and Stanton were afraid that something that implicated Lee would undermine the peace. Lee was like a god to Southerners. Still is.”

Fraser shook his head. “You talked me out of that one months ago. Mr. Bingham was giving speeches that summer that Jefferson Davis planned the whole thing. He wasn't afraid to accuse the rebels of killing Lincoln.”

Cook made a face. “Another thing. This connection between Townsend and Longstreet? I went up to the library at Howard University to check out Longstreet. After the war, he turned into a big Republican. He supported Reconstruction in the South. Still is a Republican. He's Commissioner of Railroads now, in the McKinley Administration. Because of that, even though he should be a hero to Southerners—got all shot up, led armies all over and into Pennsylvania—his name's poison down there. Some even blame him for losing the war.”

“Okay,” Fraser said. “So?”

“So why's Longstreet working with Townsend? We know Townsend's been shilling for Sam Barstow and the Sons of Liberty. Longstreet and Barstow were in the same army for four years, fighting for the noble cause of preserving slavery, but times've changed. They've been on opposite sides ever since the war. Doesn't fit.”

“I'm getting confused.”

“I know. It's just the longer we work on this thing, the less anything is the way it seems. I'm starting to appreciate one thing.” Cook pointed his finger at Fraser. “They should still be worried about us. They still got lots to hide. After all, we know they're killers. They beat you up once, threatened you once, and tried to kill you twice. And they're not quite sure how much we know. And we've still got the frog book.”

Fraser smiled and patted his pocket. “So how do we use it?” “I'm not sure yet, but hang on to it. Now, let's think about this Townsend thing.”