The Lincoln Conspiracy (39 page)

Two addresses were in the middle of the page:

“Augustus, is the name John Surratt familiar to you?” Temple asked.

“Lucy Hale made a point of mentioning him to me at the National Hotel. I suspect he is the Patriot to Booth’s Avenger.”

“Well done. Now, tell me why you don’t trust Pinkerton.”

Augustus pulled two more sheets of paper from the back of the diary. It was another telegram that he had also decoded on an accompanying page. Temple scanned it, nodding in recognition as he reread it.

“We should get back to Mr. Pinkerton,” Temple said.

“I was worried about even leaving him alone with Fiona.”

“Fiona and Mrs. Dix have the situation in hand.”

P
INKERTON, STILL FOGGED
, stretched his legs to their limits on his bed and pressed his elbows outward, trying to test the boundaries of the straitjacket pinning his arms to his sides.

Temple opened the door to his room and stepped inside.

“Your wife is untrustworthy, McFadden. She and that other beast, Mrs. Dix, had two attendants hold me back at the breakfast table, and then your wife chloroformed me.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Your wife also did this to one of my men at the Smithsonian. She burned his jaw.”

“I’m aware of that as well. You’re not burned. Be thankful.”

Pinkerton rolled against his restraints again, but the leather straps
surrounding his chest and crossing underneath his crotch stayed taut.

“Mr. Pinkerton, you yourself have women in your employ who are quite pleased to be aggressors.”

“One woman. I have just one woman in my employ.”

“She aided my wife, and we’re grateful to her.”

“Right now I think Miss Warne should have let your wife rot in Defiance.”

“Did you ever seek employment from a railroad man in New York?”

Pinkerton stopped struggling against the straitjacket.

“I loved President Lincoln, Mr. McFadden,” Pinkerton said.

“You’ve said this to me before, Mr. Pinkerton, and I don’t doubt that you loved the president. Your work for the Underground Railroad was honorable.”

“You know of that?”

“I supported the Underground Railroad, too. It rather conflicts with your blather that the needy must always fend for themselves, does it not?”

“I wouldn’t equate emancipating slaves with tolerating the vagaries and inadequacies of nutters who need to be confined to asylums. The latter individuals have already demonstrated that they cannot contribute to society. The former were never given an opportunity to prove themselves.”

Temple sat down on a chair next to Pinkerton’s bed and laid his cane on the floor. Pinkerton turned his head toward him, his eyes creased with worry.

“So there is mention of me in the diary, then?”

“Which is why you wanted it in the first place, yes?”

“Surely.”

“You never have read it, have you?”

“No, of course I haven’t. I knew about it because Lafayette Baker’s read the diary. He told me that if I got unruly in any capacity, he would make sure that the information came out in some fashion. But
I’m not one to simply absorb threats without taking action. It was why my men were at the B&O in the first place.”

“Why would it be damning for you to have sought work as a cinder dick?”

“We have much to talk about, Mr. McFadden.”

“Be that as it may, you’ll have to remain here and bound by your new camisole for a few days, I’m afraid.”

“Days?”

“Days.”

“The man who got us here in the skiff knows where I am. He’ll return if he becomes worried.”

“You’ll send a signed note to the door through Mrs. Dix that you’re not to be bothered.”

“Without the use of my damn hands?”

“Mrs. Dix has four men here who can help her, if need be. They’ll unstrap you. As far as they know, you’re just another patient. If you begin screaming again, you’ll get chloroformed.”

Temple leaned forward in his chair, patting Pinkerton on the arm.

“Now,” he said, “let’s talk about New York.”

T
EMPLE SPENT TWO
more days at St. Elizabeth’s, resting, eating, conferring with Augustus and Fiona, and waiting for the search for his double in Virginia to begin winding down.

He left just before sundown on the fourth day, wearing the uniform he had pilfered in the burlap sack from the Old Arsenal. The greatcoat was too heavy for late spring in the District, and he draped it across the neck of the horse that Mrs. Dix had loaned him, stashing his cane beneath it, tied to the pommel, so that it wouldn’t draw attention when he crossed the river again.

Fiona reached up to rub her husband’s bad leg as he sat in his saddle.

“You finally got to put on a uniform.”

“War’s over, Fi.”

“You still wear it well. And that’s another brand-new pair of boots you have on.”

“I’ll mind them.”

“You come back home to me, Temple McFadden. We have a life to live together.”

Temple put his hand on his lips and smiled down at her, then tipped his Union cap to the doorway, where Augustus and Mrs. Dix stood. His horse bucked and snorted as he trotted down the hill, away from the asylum. Temple patted the mount’s neck, leaning forward to whisper in its ear, until it calmed down. The light began to fade from orange to violet as he made his way to Edwin Stanton’s home.

F
ranklin Square was quiet.

But even on quiet nights, Edwin Stanton’s three-story brick mansion was ringed by soldiers, three out front facing K Street, three in the alley behind it that ran between 13th and 14th streets.

Stanton’s wife was asleep upstairs when he arrived home, so he sat in his library reading through the notes the prosecution had given him for the trial of the president’s assassins. Floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookcases surrounded him. He had first ordered them specially made for the room when he bought the property in 1859, but war shortages meant it had taken six years for him to get them finished. Nearly three thousand volumes filled the shelves, the entirety devoted to law, military strategy, and history.

He’d also once set his mind on buying custom Italian glass for all of his windows during President Lincoln’s second term. He never had made the purchase, and now he wasn’t sure he would keep the house at all. He gazed out of his library into the dining room, recalling the laughter that used to surround the table when the president spun yarns at meals.

A drumbeat of poundings on the front door reminded him that the mansion’s bellpull was still broken, and when he swung the door open, two soldiers were standing there. The first was one of Stanton’s regulars; the other stood outside the pool of light pouring from his hallway and onto the stoop. The man in the shadows had a cane.

“Yes, Private Leonard?”

“This one here says he has an urgent delivery for you, sir. Says he has photographs of John Wilkes Booth that you requested.”

Temple stepped into the light.

“Right through the front door, is it?” Stanton said.

“Right through the front door.”

S
TANTON BROUGHT
T
EMPLE
back into the library.

“Your resourcefulness surprises even me, Mr. McFadden.”

“I haven’t much time.”

“I want you to know something: I loved the president.”

“I have heard that said frequently of late.”

“I am not jesting with you, sir,” Stanton howled, slamming his fist on the arm of his chair. “When I began with him I considered him the original gorilla, plagued by imbecilities. At the end I believed him the wisest, steadiest soul I had ever encountered, and I firmly believe God put him here to serve in this moment. No one else could have.”

“Mr. Stanton, we have other matters to discuss.”

“We will get to those. But I need you to understand my utter devotion to President Lincoln. I watched him expire. I sat by his bedside and watched him die.”

Stanton began crying with a sudden, childlike force, pulling his spectacles from his face and burying his fists into his eyes, his chest and his shoulders convulsing. Temple looked away, waiting for the war secretary to compose himself.

“I want you to tell me about Thomas Scott.”

“Mr. McFadden, you have very little weight in this standoff.”

“I have the diaries and I have two photographs of Booth.”

“As of an hour ago you no longer have the diary,” Stanton said, pulling a kerchief from his breast pocket and wiping his eyes and spectacles. “Troops led by General Custer went to the asylum on my orders and brought your wife, Mrs. Dix, Mr. Pinkerton, and the diary back to the War Department. They are all only a few blocks away from us right now.”

Temple blinked, trying to make sense of what Stanton had just told him. The old man had outmaneuvered him, just as he had when
he arrested him in the stands at the Grand Review. Temple’s mouth went dry. It was all over now. Stanton had what he wanted, and Temple could no longer bargain.

“How did you know?” Temple asked.

“The oarsman. Mr. Pinkerton believed him to be one of his, but he’s my man and I’ve had him with Pinkerton for two years now. Pinkerton is a man to be watched, and my man watched him. After the oarsman dropped the pair of you at St. Elizabeth’s, he reported back to me. Please be assured, I have no intention of harming your wife or putting her in jail.”

“Why didn’t you send troops to the asylum the evening I arrived? Or the next day?”

“Because you needed time to compose yourself after your inventive departure from the Old Arsenal, and I wanted to see to it that you had the time to do so. And I wanted Mr. Wood to busy himself in Virginia. He hasn’t a notion about where you and the diary are right now, and that’s just as well. He has his uses, but they aren’t in order here anymore; the war is over, and it’s time for him to recognize that and be less eager for bloodshed. In any event, you needed your rest if you were to continue on the path you’d chosen. I hope you understand that all of what has occurred here will never become part of a public dialogue. But justice still might be served.”

“How do you see that?”

“You’re determined to find a certain person, I take it. After great deliberation I’ve decided that’s perfectly fine. What you’re digging into will never go to trial, Mr. McFadden. You understand that, don’t you?”

“You’re content to see Mrs. Surratt hang?”

“I’m confident that Mrs. Surratt was deeply involved in a plot to kill the president. I’m confident that the sooner our fragile democracy moves beyond this murder, the better. The diary offers the possibility of a narrative that is … disruptive. President Lincoln was a pragmatist and would have understood.”

Stanton moved to his windows and looked out on his guards, his fingers coursing through his beard. He turned back to Temple.

“Do you know who Maestro is?” Temple asked.

“I believe I know what Maestro has done, but I do not know who he is.”

“How did you become aware of him?”

“Through the diary at first—just like you did, yes? Once I was aware of Maestro’s presence in Booth’s firmament, I began to think back to events, conversations with the president. That’s how Thomas Scott came more fully into my view.”

“For what reason?”

“Mr. Scott is an influential railroad man, an executive with the Pennsylvania Railroad. President Lincoln brought him into the War Department to oversee all of our rail lines during the war. He managed the transport of cargo and soldiers in an extraordinary fashion. On one occasion alone he successfully arranged the movement of some thirteen thousand troops and their horses by rail from Nashville to Chattanooga.”

“What was his relationship with Maestro?”

“I am not entirely certain. But Mr. Scott is evangelical on the topic of railroads. He and a broader clique became quite intent on forcing President Lincoln’s hand earlier this spring. They wanted him to use the powers of the federal government to support a national railroad that traversed the North and South and connected to the West. It would begin in Pennsylvania, connect in St. Louis, and terminate in San Francisco, with spurs throughout a rebuilt and revitalized South. Mr. Scott called it the Texas and Pacific Railroad. His Scottish apprentice, Andrew Carnegie, was very much involved. Mr. Carnegie, lest you’re unaware, is an intimate of Mr. Pinkerton’s.”

“You and the president represented the railroads as lawyers and did very well on them. What was so troubling about the Texas and Pacific’s plans?”

“The president was a railway advocate for much of his private career and for much of his presidency, certainly. He saw to it that the Railroad Acts bestowed large land grants and government funding on industry to speed the completion of a transcontinental railroad. But it all evolved into a force unto itself. There was corruption in the funding and construction of it, and there was corruption in the legislatures. The sums of money involved transformed people.”

“So President Lincoln set out to block it?”

“Not the transcontinental railroad. Never. He said the ugliness around that was the price of progress. As I told you, he was a pragmatist. It was Mr. Scott he wanted to block.”

“And why only Mr. Scott?”

“Mr. Scott and his group wanted to control all of the rail lines in the South. To do that, they needed cooperation from the Democrats controlling the region’s legislatures. To that end, they wanted President Lincoln to withdraw Union forces from the South, to step back from securing the rights of free Negroes there and from imposing a new order on the Confederacy. The president, of course, dismissed this avarice, and I supported him fully. Only a week before he was murdered he had requested a meeting with Mr. Scott and others in his faction to make it plain to them that he would use every power at his disposal to stand in their way. Once stirred, President Lincoln was a mighty force.”