The Lincoln Deception (19 page)

He cleared his throat. “Yes, yes, I suppose we have. That possible connection to smuggled cotton seems now to be quite sound. We also have some substantial evidence that the conspirators intended to kill General Grant, too, which would have left the government quite adrift, permitting all sorts of mischief. I think the assassination really was an act of state by the Southern government.”

“But,” Eliza objected, “Wilkes wrote in his diary that the decision to kill Lincoln was his alone, that it was designed to preserve slavery and defend the Confederacy.”

“Those were desperate days, difficult ones to imagine. The Confederacy was dying, the world turning upside down. Booth need not have known the true motives of those who conceived and paid for his effort. Or perhaps his notebook, or that entry in it, was created by the people who arranged his killing. He was, I am sure, merely the pawn in the gambit. Like all pawns, he was readily sacrificed.”

“I've always believed that much.” Eliza's eyes shone with a vehemence he hadn't seen before. “It's been a curse for the Booth family all these years, you can have no idea. It is no small matter to be a close relative of a man supposed to be a great villain, indeed, the greatest. I spoke with you that first time because I hoped it might be a balm to the family to know that Wilkes was manipulated, that bad men took advantage of his passionate nature.”

A waiter approached with plates of roast squab, a specialty of the house.

When the waiter had withdrawn, Eliza touched Fraser's arm and looked up at him. “Forgive me. I know that Wilkes's crime cannot be condoned, and I don't, but it's hard to watch it wear down those you love, year after year.”

Fraser assured her that there was nothing to forgive, that her generosity of spirit toward the Booths only made her more dear to him. And, he added, he had thought of a way in which she might be able to assist his inquiry, if she were willing.

“Of course.” She waited with a steady calm.

“I would like,” he said, “to speak with three ladies of standing in this city, and of somewhat advanced years.”

“Whatever for?” Eliza directed her attention to her squab, which was so delicate as to defy easy consumption. Fraser longed to pick his up with his fingers and be done with it.

“They may know something important about the Booth conspiracy. They are Mrs. Martha Foster, Mrs. Julia Grant, and Mrs. Lucy Chandler.”

Eliza placed her knife and fork on her plate and sat back. “My,” she said, “you are aiming high. Wasn't Mrs. Chandler engaged to marry Wilkes, she was Bessie Hale then?”

“Indeed. She traveled with him in New England in the week before the assassination. She even had breakfast with him on April 14th here in Washington. He carried her photo.”

Eliza gave him an admonishing look. “Along with photos of four other women.” As Fraser hacked ineffectually at the bird before him, she added, “Why don't you just wait for the steak, Jamie? It will yield far more easily to your desires.”

With a shrug, he abandoned the effort. Her smile again warmed him. He wondered if her remark meant something more.

“Perhaps something can be arranged,” she said. “You know our premiere is the day after tomorrow. We usually have a supper party afterward to allow Creston to burn off his high spirits. We could include your ladies on the guest list.”

Fraser agreed that the occasion might suit his needs.

 

Fraser admired the lobby of the National Hotel. Oversized leather chairs and couches remembered former splendor but did not cling to it, their arms worn to the cross-hatched softness of chamois cloth. Sprawling chandeliers burned under a light coat of dust, providing the sort of indirect light favored by aging courtesans. It was a large space, but still provided intimate corners suitable for conversations that might later be denied.

Passing through in the morning, on his way to breakfast with Cook, Fraser heard a deep voice call, “Doctor! Doctor!” Knowing no one in the city who would match that voice—actually, knowing no one in Washington at all save for Speed Cook and the Clarke troupe—Fraser kept walking. He had registered under a false name, as Cook insisted, so no one should know he was a doctor. Movement to his left drew his eye. It proved to be the rotund form of George Townsend, bearing down upon him. The writer sported a walking stick, bowler hat, and broad smile. Fraser was not pleased.

After perfunctory greetings, Townsend drew Fraser aside. He asked, sotto voce, about Fraser's progress with his “inquiries” into that “matter of mutual interest.”

“I recall no matter of mutual interest,” Fraser said. He turned to walk away.

Townsend placed a restraining hand on his arm. “That would be a mistake.”

“One of many, no doubt.” Fraser felt a glow of righteousness as he turned on his heel and continued to the hotel newsstand.

He walked north and then west, ending up at a simple restaurant where the downtown district petered out. The proprietor waved him toward a table that still bore the clutter of an earlier meal. Fraser pushed the dishes aside and sat down. After a few minutes, Cook sat across from him. “If they followed you,” he said, “I didn't see it.”

As the proprietor cleared the dishes, Fraser recounted his exchange with Townsend. Maddeningly, Cook said that he should have talked to the writer.

“But,” Fraser objected, “you're the one who persuaded me not to trust him.”

“Don't trust him, sure. But this ain't no accident, him showing up in this hotel lobby. He's Jed Stoneman in a less violent form. I'm hoping that after the business on the boat, they're deciding not to send any more tough guys after us. Townsend's not the type to pull out any ether on you, so talk to the man.”

“But I can't tell him what we really think about the assassination.”

“Look, this man knows more about the Lincoln business than he's ever written. Plus, he's in Barstow's pocket. So you need to play him, just like a bass. Don't you ever fish?”

Fraser remained silent.

“Tell him he was right about everything, but we're at a dead end, what can he tell us?”

“He's not going to tell us the truth,” Fraser said.

“Okay, but we can learn from his lies. He tells us something to throw us off the track, we know not to look in that direction. You remember telling me something just like that?”

“Yeah, right before I went to dangle off the top of a bridge.”

“Maybe we're closer than we know. If they sent Townsend to us, if they're ransacking our luggage, it means the game's still on. You don't always win with a brilliant play. Lots of times you just hang on until the other guy does something boneheaded. Here's a chance for them to be boneheaded, just in case your tea party with the old ladies doesn't solve everything.”

“So I stride up to him and announce, ‘Mr. Townsend, I was wrong earlier. I really want to have a nice long chat with you.' ”

“Those are
just
the words, though you want to work on your tone of voice. He'll be waiting on you. You talk with him a while; then I can follow him. Maybe we can learn who's pulling his strings.”

“We know. It's Barstow.”

“Who else? Where are they? Let's see what we find out, okay?”

After they ordered breakfast, Fraser pulled out the newspaper article about Boss Croker. Cook laughed out loud as he read it. “Oh my,” he said. “Seems like we weren't even playing the same game as these people.”

“If only that frog book wasn't ruined.”

Cook was quiet for a moment. “They don't know that, do they? All they know is that they didn't find it, so we still have it. One more reason to talk to Townsend.”

“Listen, Speed. I don't care at all about Croker and Tammany. We're investigating Booth.”

“As the editor of an Ohio newspaper, I'm interested in everything.”

 

It turned out to be as easy as Cook predicted. Townsend was planted in one of the overstuffed chairs at the side of the hotel lobby. Late in the morning, Fraser marched up to him, apologized for his earlier rudeness, and proposed they share a drink. Townsend, the soul of courtesy, insisted on paying. Fraser had little experience with whiskey before noon, so he resolved to nurse his shot of rye.

Fraser offered Townsend an edited version of their “inquiries” on the “matter of mutual interest.” He left out the violence and dangling off the bridge tower. He didn't mention Anna Surratt Tonry or Sam Arnold. He said he was increasingly convinced that Booth's efforts were paid for by other people, and that he had an idea who might have handled the payments. He claimed to be flummoxed over who was behind it all, which was true enough.

After listening impassively, Townsend said, “Sir, I applaud your industry. You have made a capital effort, capital indeed. Tell me, is that darky still working with you?”

“No,” Fraser said, “he didn't prove reliable. We separated in New York. You may recall that he was out of sorts when we visited at your home?”

Townsend nodded, so Fraser continued. “I'm grateful for your help until now.” The words, worked out with Cook ahead of time, felt leaden in his mouth. “And I wonder if you might be able to provide some additional guidance?”

“Only too happy,” Townsend said. “There is one thing that occurs to me. I would propose that you join me in visiting another man who could cast some light on the matter.”

“What other man? Have you told him of my activities?”

“You must trust me on this. What do you say to tomorrow afternoon at four?”

Fraser was ready. “I have a commitment then with, ah, a lady. You wouldn't expect me to break a commitment to a lady. Perhaps we could meet on the following afternoon at the same time?”

Townsend said he would try to meet Fraser's schedule. He would leave a message with the hotel desk, in Fraser's assumed name. As the writer levered himself upright and headed for the door, Fraser had the feeling that this bass might be playing him.

 

Townsend didn't walk very fast. The side-to-side motion in his stride reminded Cook of a duck as he watched the potbellied writer start up Sixth Street. Cook loitered a distance behind, confident he could keep Townsend in view.

In front of a jewelry shop, a carriage drawn by a striking pair of matched bays slowed. The writer climbed aboard smoothly, unexpectedly nimble for his age and girth. As the bays sped up the street and turned left onto E Street, Cook attempted to flag a hack to follow. Three passed him by, either occupied or uninterested in stopping for a colored man. Cook tried to follow on foot. When he rounded the corner of E Street, the bays were nowhere in sight.

Cook choked down his annoyance. Even failure taught its lessons. Townsend was definitely not working alone. He was part of a well-managed organization, Barstow's.

Cook strolled over to a store selling neckwear. He cast his eye up and down the street, looking for anyone who might be watching him.

D
inner-jacketed men mingled with jewel-bedecked women in Clarke's suite at the Willard. Fraser struck up a conversation with a likely looking couple, but met only a tepid response. Their eyes wandered as they mouthed pleasantries, then smoothly disengaged and set off in pursuit of more significant companions.

Fraser had not enjoyed the performance of
Richelieu,
though Eliza said the play was one of Clarke's favorites. The drama seemed awkwardly constructed, meandering episodically through plots and murders, all pulled together in an artificially wise closing speech delivered by Clarke as Cardinal Richelieu. Watching in the darkened theater, Fraser again reflected that for a family like the Booths, who aped bloody and conspiratorial tragedies on a nightly basis, real-life assassination might feel familiar. The theater as a school for assassins.

As Fraser looked for somewhere to place his empty champagne glass, Eliza caught his eye. She was speaking with a tall woman, sturdily built, whose severe features suggested judgments being drawn. Her silver gown looked as though it had been worn many times.

“This is Dr. Fraser, about whom I was telling you,” Eliza said as he approached. “Jamie, may I present Mrs. Chandler?” They shook hands. “I was reminding Mrs. Chandler that we met in Boston some years ago when I played Portia in Edwin Booth's company, but she remembers only Edwin's Shylock.”

“Oh, dear,” the older lady insisted, “I am sure you were wonderful, Mrs. Scott, but Mr. Booth, well! He was divine.”

“Jamie,” Eliza said. “Mrs. Chandler and you might talk in the next room?” She led them into a small dressing room.

“My dear,” the older lady said, reaching for Eliza's hand, “I just now see it. It's a remarkable resemblance. But I have not thought of him in so long. I am pleased to know you.”

When Eliza closed the door behind her, Fraser and Mrs. Chandler faced each other in narrow chairs. He dove into the tale, explaining that his study of the Booth conspiracy had unearthed no record of her statements on the assassination. He hoped she could recount any memories she had of the days leading up to it.

“I fear I will disappoint you as much as I did the detectives back then,” she said. “My father arranged for my statements never to be made public, but they would have revealed nothing. Wilkes never breathed a word to me of his plans. He had so many secrets. Though I was appalled by his crime, I do believe the secrets appealed to my romantic side.

“You must realize,” she added with a flutter that included a blush on her papery cheeks, “I was totally besotted. A day with Wilkes was worth a lifetime with most men. He was electric. As a young woman I had been rather sheltered, so I found him a revelation. I suppose he took advantage of me, but I didn't care then and I certainly don't now. It took me ten years to stop comparing every man I met, quite unfavorably, to Wilkes.”

Fraser pressed, asking about her time with Booth in Newport and Boston in the week before the assassination, and her breakfast with Booth on the fateful day. Mrs. Chandler waved her hand dismissively. “I must seem like some pathetic dodo bird, but I noticed nothing. He seemed just as he always did. I was not then the best observer of character.”

“While you were with Booth, did you have any contact with a man named Samuel Barstow, or Julius Spencer?”

She looked over his shoulder, then said yes, Spencer sounded familiar. “I think I'm quite sure. Mr. Spencer—perhaps a businessman? He met Wilkes in Newport, when we arrived on the packet boat from New York. Wilkes described him as a business associate, but Wilkes had no more head for business than does a six-week-old puppy. I suppose Mr. Spencer gave him money, because Wilkes became quite cheerful and resumed spending lavishly, much to my delight. Wilkes was like that. If he had money, he spent it, and he had not had much in the days immediately before. Mr. Spencer must have brought a good deal because Wilkes was still spending when we had breakfast in Washington on the next Friday, that terrible day.”

As they passed back into the main party, Mrs. Chandler gave Fraser a stern look. “I trust,” she said, “you will do nothing to burden that fine young woman, Mrs. Scott.”

Fraser had no time to puzzle over the remark, for that very Mrs. Scott was bearing down on him with a round-faced woman in tow. Introduced to Mrs. Ulysses Grant, Fraser was momentarily speechless, a response that seemed to give Mrs. Grant satisfaction. He gestured for her to enter the side room. It felt like escorting a patient into his examination room.

When seated, Fraser surprised himself. “My father,” he began, “served under your husband in the Vicksburg campaign. He was a captain in the Ohio volunteers. It's a matter of pride in my family.”

“Is your father still with us?” she asked.

“No, he died a few years after the war. I was still small.”

Mrs. Grant sighed and reached for his hand. “So many sad stories.” Her sympathy seemed genuine, but her eyes didn't look directly at him. They focused somewhere to his left. He began to wonder if the absence of direct eye contact was a condition brought on by the Washington climate.

When he asked her about the day of the assassination, he needed only to sit back and listen. From the avalanche of information that tumbled from her, two incidents stood out. The first was vivid in her mind thirty-five years later.

“I was lunching with a friend,” she said, “and we each had a child with us. It was all quite domestic. During the meal, I became convinced that a man at a nearby table was attempting to overhear us. The general, of course, was recognized everywhere, but I was not yet used to being watched in public. The man was dark, yet pale of complexion, handsome yet peculiar. He pretended to eat his soup, raising a spoon to his lips but never tasting it. Very peculiar. He sat with three other men but paid them no mind, listening only to us.

“Well, in the afternoon, the general and I left by carriage for the depot. We were going to the New Jersey shore. And this very same man rode by us at a pounding gallop, then stopped, wheeled his horse with a great show, and rode back past us again. Each time he swept by, he glared at the general. Let me tell you, the general immediately marked him out as a dangerous man and observed that he did not care for his looks.

“And, of course, we learned very soon that that man”—she nodded her head with finality—“was John Wilkes Booth.”

“He didn't speak with you or General Grant?”

“Not a word.”

“Did the men with him at lunch prove to be part of his conspiracy?”

“I don't know. He was the one I noticed. Those moments, my dear doctor, are seared upon my soul.”

“So you are convinced that Booth intended to attack General Grant as well.”

“I have no doubt of it. The newspapers had reported that the general and I would view the play at Ford's Theatre that evening with the Lincolns. When Booth saw us leaving for the depot, he had to know his plan was disrupted.”

Yet Mrs. Grant's second incident suggested that Booth adjusted his scheme to the Grants' plans. On the morning after the assassination, General Grant left to take a special train from New Jersey back to Washington. After he left, Mrs. Grant opened a letter addressed to the general. Though unsigned, it stated—she recited this breathlessly, with her vibrating eyes fixed on the ceiling—
“I thank God you still live. Your life fell to my lot and I was on the cars following you. You escaped me only because your car door was locked. Thank God!”

“So, someone followed you on the train?”

“So the letter said.”

“And intended to kill the general.”

“So the letter said.”

“And desisted because the door was locked?”

“I suppose he feared that breaking down the door would alert my husband and others. The general was a fighting man.”

Fraser decided to try one other line of questions. What, he asked, was the general's attitude toward those who wished to import Southern cotton for northern mills?

Mrs. Grant made a face. “That's quite simple. He thought they should be hung, starting with his own father. That was the one thing, at least the one thing I knew about, where he disagreed with Mr. Lincoln, but the general never trimmed his view on it. Why, you know”—she dropped her voice, though no one else was with them—“he refused to honor licenses to ship cotton that the president himself had signed. It was war! ‘In war,' he always said, ‘you do not do business with the enemy.' ”

Returning to the party, Fraser felt pleased with his evening. A figure at the entrance, leaving the party, caught his eye. From the back, it looked like Townsend. But that wasn't possible. Fraser heard Eliza's voice.

“Jamie,” she said, drawing close to him. How dear she seemed, her face alive with feeling. “I fear you just missed Mrs. Foster. She's gone down to her carriage. Perhaps you could catch her? She's small, white-haired, in a silver gown.”

Fraser left quickly. He took the steps two at a time to the hotel lobby. At the curb, he strained to pick out a figure matching the description of Mrs. Foster. There, at the corner, a small woman wearing a mantilla over her hair was reaching for a carriage door. He trotted to her side.

“Mrs. Foster?” he asked, cupping her elbow. Two bright blue eyes looked up at him and caught the glow from the streetlight. “Forgive me for intruding,” Fraser rushed on, “but Mrs. Scott suggested I make sure you get home safely, and I failed to see you leave until this very moment.”

“That's very kind of Mrs. Scott,” the lady said, “but I will be quite all right, thank you very much.”

Fraser kept his grip on her elbow and guided her up to the carriage seat. “Truly, Mrs. Foster, I would value the opportunity to spend a moment in conversation, and if it's not too late, perhaps we could talk as you ride.”

“Oh, I suppose that would be all right.”

Fraser hurried to the other side and climbed in. When the driver pulled away from the curb, he introduced himself. He had worried about this conversation. The widow of Lafayette Foster could hardly welcome the suggestion that Abraham Lincoln was killed in order to place her husband in the White House.

“Mrs. Foster,” he began, “I have recently been in New York and visited with a quite impressive gentleman there, Samuel Barstow. Do you know him?”

“I don't believe so.” Her expression was mild, her manner decorous. Fraser was not eager to distress Mrs. Foster.

“I believe his former business partner, Julius Spencer, may have had business connections in Connecticut. Perhaps you or your husband encountered him? The firm name is Spencer, Barstow and Company.”

“Julius?” The old lady smiled as the carriage swayed through quiet streets. “Dear Julius. My husband's cousin. Something of a black sheep.”

“He was a cotton broker? It's the same man?”

“Oh, certainly. A very charming man, as only a rogue can be.”

Fraser saw a way to press the matter. “Mr. Barstow,” he said, “was boasting that this Spencer fellow used his connections with your husband to get licenses to ship cotton from the South. I doubted him very much, but he was adamant.”

“That's not something I could know about, could I—what this other man might say about what Julius Spencer said? But you should know that Senator Foster was quite wary of his cousin, although he believed that the Union war effort was actually strengthened by supplying our New England mills with Southern cotton. How else were we to clothe ourselves? President Lincoln entirely agreed with Senator Foster on that point, despite”—she whispered in a conspiratorial manner—“the views of the great Ulysses.”

“I resented the remarks of this Barstow,” Fraser volunteered, “implying some . . . I don't know, collaboration between your husband and these Southern cotton types.”

“Senator Foster stood by the Union always, though his type of Republican—wishing only brotherly relations with the South—did not fare well after the war.”

“Did he and his cousin, this Mr. Spencer, patch things up then, after the war?”

“Why, yes, of course. They had never really broken off, I think. Lafayette just was very careful about being seen with Julius. Julius was a bit bullheaded about political matters, if you know what I mean.”

“I shall certainly put Barstow straight about Senator Foster next time I see him.”

After depositing Mrs. Foster at her home, Fraser walked back to the hotel, his mind overflowing with new information. He found Eliza bidding farewell to the final guests of the evening. When they were gone, he took her hand. “The night is almost as lovely as you,” he said. “Will you look at it with me?”

“Just for a short time,” she said. “It's been a long day.”

When they began to walk up Fourteenth Street, Fraser said he had heard a good deal that surprised him that night. “For example, I had no idea you were an actress.” He feared his tone was more chiding than he intended. He had accepted the idea that she was part of the racy world of the theater, but to have been an
actress
—that carried further implications.

“Oh, that was ages ago.”

“How long ago?”

“Years and years.”

“Still and all, that's rather a rich life to imagine for a man from Cadiz. What else,” he asked, “might I expect to find out about you?”

She did not answer right away, then sighed. “Oh, Jamie, I have omitted much of my history from our relations. It's not a splendid history, but you've been kind to me, and I have—not intentionally, mind you—placed you in an awkward position, so I suppose I must tell you. I have waited far too long to do so. And then we will part.”