The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (10 page)

“The conduct of the war, for one thing. And his policy—”

“Opposing Mr. Lincoln’s war hardly makes a man a radical.” An echoing laugh, surprisingly hearty in the dank little room. “Everyone with any sense was against it. Whole thing was completely unnecessary. None of our business what the South does with its negroes.” He shook that heavy head, glanced at Abigail, then back at his book. “Half a million or more dead because of Abraham Lincoln’s vanity and lies.”

Abigail’s head came back up, but she said nothing. Jonathan chose to challenge only the inspector’s implicit minor premise. “No, no, the Radicals thought the President’s war policy insufficiently energetic.”

“He crushed the South, slaughtered its young men, burned their homes, and confiscated their slaves.” Varak’s voice was perfectly calm. “I understand the Union soldiers even melted down the railroad tracks when they weren’t busy helping themselves to all the silver and gold they could steal. That wasn’t energetic enough for your Mr. Wade and his Radicals?”

Again Jonathan hesitated. The conversation had taken an absurd turn. He wanted to correct the inspector, who had evidently been reading
the pro-Southern broadsheets. But Varak, like Lincoln himself, projected an air of competence that made one want to assist him in his inquiries.

“They object to his policy toward the defeated states,” Jonathan explained. “The Radicals believe the South should be treated as a conquered territory. Mr. Lincoln considers the Southern states to be our wayward brothers. Inspector, please. I was not being serious. I am sure that the Radicals had nothing to do with—”

Varak waved him silent. “I shouldn’t worry, Mr. Hilliman. Your friend Mr. McShane was sliced open with a prostitute at his side. Whoever did the deed took the time to slice her open as well. These are violent times, Mr. Hilliman. I shouldn’t think it has anything to do with politics.”

But in Washington City during those sullen gray years after the war, everything had to do with politics. And so the newspapers, lately starved for scandal, dutifully exploited the crime. “President’s Lawyer Is Stabbed to Death,” said an anti-Lincoln sheet. “Lincoln’s Ally Dead with Negress,” said another. But the Republican press was scarcely better, omitting only the political connection: “Lawyer, Prostitute Murdered.” Jonathan wondered how Lincoln and his staff had reacted to the news; and who would now advise the President in the impeachment inquiry.

Certainly his own days on the case, and Abigail’s, were likely at an end, given that Dennard had opposed the firm’s involvement from the start.

Abigail surprised them both by speaking up. “Inspector, may I ask a question?”

The huge eyes looked interested. Not in the question. In the species: a negress who thought for herself.

“Please,” he said.

“You said that Mr. McShane and Miss Deveaux were found on the sidewalk outside the brothel.”

“That is correct.”

“Do you happen to know whether they were on their way into the building, or on their way out?”

Varak’s forehead creased. With irritation. “What possible difference does that make?”

“I was just wondering,” said Abigail, meekly.

The inspector gave her a long, searching policeman’s stare, the sort
of look that was supposed to make you confess on the spot, then turned his attention back to Jonathan. “You asked why I raised the name of Benjamin Wade. Look at this.” From his desk he drew a wrinkled envelope, slit open at knife point. A brown stain might have been blood.
Sliced up
. He turned it over. “Happen to recognize the handwriting at all, do we?”

“No,” said Jonathan.

“No,” said Abigail, after a spooky pause.

“Any idea what might have been
in
the envelope?”

Jonathan shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve never seen it before.”

“Pity. We found it just like this, beside McShane’s body. Bloody odd of them to leave it behind, don’t you think?”

Jonathan might have nodded. He might have argued. He might have done a lot of things, had he not been staring at the inscription on the outside, in spiky handwriting he did not recognize:

“Bloody odd,” Varak repeated, and, with a rough, angry shove, slid the envelope back into his desk.

II

From the police headquarters on Capitol Hill, they rode up to Nineteenth Street to pay a call on Mrs. McShane and express condolences. Abigail seemed shrunken and distracted. She insisted on waiting in the carriage. At the door, the maid told Jonathan that the widow was not receiving at this time, and that he should return tomorrow. Now, heading back to the firm’s offices, he turned to Abigail.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You should not have been there.”

“It was I who insisted.”

“Still.”

“You are kind, Jonathan, but you need not worry about me. I know you have your own grieving to which to attend.”

They rode along in silence for a bit. The winter sun was bright but cheerless. With Arthur McShane gone, Jonathan was possessed of a sudden longing to quit this sad little city. He should marry Meg and go back to Rhode Island, which was where in any event she wanted to
go. She despised Washington society, as did nearly everyone not from Washington. Jonathan had come to the city because his late father and McShane had been good friends, and because Uncle Brighton, who nowadays ran the family business, thought his nephew should learn the law before taking the reins. Meg considered the whole thing a detour, and also suspected that Brighton was robbing the business blind, but Jonathan was not the sort of man who turned easily once his path was chosen.

In that sense, at least, Abigail seemed a kindred spirit.

Finally, he said, “There is no need to go to the office. If you would like, I can take you home.”

“No, thank you. I have work to do.”

A streetcar passed, horses struggling on the icy cobbles. Unfriendly eyes burned their way. Jonathan wondered whether passersby considered the two of them a couple.

“You do realize that we are unlikely to continue representing the President in this matter.”

She lifted her chin. “Until we are discharged, however, we should continue as we began, should we not?”

About to argue, Jonathan decided to let the matter drop. Dennard’s views were plain, but if Abigail wanted to postpone accepting that truth until the lawyer returned from the West Coast, he saw no reason to disabuse her.

He said, “Our response is due on Tuesday.” When Abigail did not reply, he continued. “Mr. McShane was supposed to go to the Senate today with Mr. Speed to request more time to answer the charges.” Still she would not rise. “I imagine that Mr. Speed can do that alone. He is the attorney general of the United States, after all.”

“Yes,” she said, vaguely.

“Why did you ask that question? You asked Inspector Varak whether they were … killed … going into the brothel or coming out. Why does that matter?”

Abigail was a while answering. They stopped at Seventh Street while a train passed, bringing passengers and produce from the South to the depot of the Baltimore and Potomac line. Acrid gray smoke made their eyes water. Faces glared from the windows. None looked happy to be arriving in Washington City.

“I was testing a theory,” she said.

“And what theory is that?”

“That the inspector is not really investigating the case.” She closed her eyes. “His inability to answer my simple question suggests that I am correct.”

Jonathan was appalled. “Why wouldn’t he be investigating the case?”

But Abigail only shook her head, and then, suddenly, straightened. “I have changed my mind. I shall get out here.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I will catch the horsecars. I am going home.”

“I can take you—”

“I need to be alone.” She touched his hand, briefly, with gloved fingers. “We both do.”

III

Jonathan returned to the offices on Fourteenth Street and barricaded himself inside with Mr. Plum, whom he scooped up from Grafton’s office on his own authority. He had Little guard the door, because the police officers below—in light of events, there were now two—were letting too many reporters slip past. To Plum, he dictated a telegram to Rufus Dennard, McShane’s partner. Dennard had been away in the West this past month, trolling for railroad business, because nowadays no firm could grow without any. Jonathan’s telegram urged Dennard’s immediate return. Plum wrung slender hands. The wires were down, he said. Jonathan asked how he knew. They were always down, Plum explained, desperately. He had previously worked as a clerk in the War Department, said Plum, and knew sabotage when he saw it. The rebels, no question. They’d been hiding out for the past year and a half in the Shenandoah Valley, and now they were emerging, getting ready to isolate the capital again, the way they did back in
’61
, and the best thing for all concerned might be to pack our bags and head for—

Jonathan shushed the poor man, reassured him, and sent him on his way to the telegraph office.

Alone again, Jonathan paged through each of the city’s half dozen or so daily newspapers, but learned nothing he had not learned the first time.
Sliced up
. The newspapers loved that detail. Full of energy, he roamed the suite. He realized that he should have sent Plum with a note to the White House, too. To Speed. Or perhaps to Stanton. It occurred to him that he did not know precisely who was in charge. The others
surely knew that Mr. Lincoln’s response was due on Tuesday, but they had been expecting McShane to take the lead. As far as Jonathan knew, there were no files or memoranda for tomorrow. At least, he had not been told to write any. He was not sure precisely what his responsibilities were.

Jonathan stood at the window, looking down at the crowd looking up. He felt alone, and cold, and unhappy, the office alive with neither McShane’s air of acerbic dismissal nor Abigail’s constant argumentative chatter.

He tried to work out why McShane would have been carrying an envelope addressed to the hated Senator Wade. Perhaps he wanted to meet to discuss the procedures for the trial—but then why make the letter confidential? Why risk carrying it to a brothel? So perhaps matters were the other way around, and McShane had been conveying a secret offer from his client. The Democratic papers had been hinting for a year that Mr. Lincoln planned to resign his office and retire to Illinois. Perhaps he was bargaining to do just that.

But the brothel. The brothel was the strangest part of all. If ever a man adored his wife, it was Arthur McShane. Jonathan was no fool. He could hardly have attended school in New Haven without gaining a proper appreciation for the fleshy side of life and for the variety of places where a variety of men sought their pleasures outside of marriage. Yet he could not imagine—

“Mister Jonathan?”

He started, and turned. Little stood in the doorway.

“Sir, you has a visitor.”

Almost before the words were out of the black man’s mouth, a woman’s form brushed past him.

Jonathan gaped in surprise, but swiftly found a smile.

Margaret Felix. His Meg. His fiancée.

IV

Meg
was broad and tough and deliberate. Every movement of her soft body exuded a winning confidence: you knew at first glance that she would accomplish whatever she set her mind to. Margaret Felix took after her father, the famous General Hiram Felix, the Lion of Louisiana, who had taken over the war in the West after Lincoln reassigned
Grant to Virginia. Her alabaster skin glowed with energy. Her eyes were a cool, determined green. She offered a quick hug and a formal, delicate kiss, and he noticed her mammy in the hallway.

“I wish to extend my condolences,” Meg announced in her clear, military voice. “Otherwise, I would not disturb your work.”

Her father’s schedule had changed, so the two of them had taken the cars last night, Meg continued: for she had a way of answering questions not yet asked. They were staying at Aunt Clara’s, on Eighth Street, as she had told him they would. She had wanted to surprise him. But now, she said, wanted instead to reassure him.

“Father and I must return to Philadelphia on Sunday. Will you dine with us tomorrow? Pleasant company will surely help you to put all of this unpleasantness out of your mind.”

And as Margaret Felix murmured and answered and questioned, it became clear to Jonathan that her principal intention was making sure that the events of last night, as she kept calling them, would not lead somehow to the postponing of the wedding, now set for October.

As for Jonathan, he did what he could to reassure her in turn, but Meg was raising questions he had not yet thought to consider. Contemplating a future without his mentor, Jonathan found himself unable to sit still. Did McShane’s partner, Dennard, even plan to keep the practice open? Meg asked, matching her fiancé’s stride as he paced through the rooms. Did Jonathan intend to continue in the law? Was there perhaps a chance that he might go back to New England to work in the family business? She was asking, secretly, if they might leave the swampy waste where a young and confusing nation had chosen eighty years previously to establish its capital, and go north, to the swirl of grand houses and colossal entertainments that marked the life that she imagined his family led.

“I don’t know,” he answered, over and over.

Some women become angry or teary when they fail to gain their ends; as do some men. Margaret Felix, daughter of the celebrated Lion, was of neither sort. She simply grew more adamant. Meg accused her beau, from time to time, of drifting indecisively through life, meaning that he did not reach decisions as rapidly and confidently as she—at least not the right decisions. For a Felix, a bad plan was better than having no plan. Margaret was nineteen years old, and Jonathan was fairly certain that even their coming marriage, although the nervous proposal was entirely his, had been a plan entirely of hers.

“You must decide, Jonathan,” she announced now. They were standing in McShane’s office, with its view down Fourteenth Street. “New England and business, or Washington City and law. You cannot let this matter linger.”