Murder at the Capitol

Book 3: Lincoln's White House Mystery

by C.M. Gleason

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

July 1861. On Independence Day, the citizens of Washington, DC, are celebrating as if there isn't a war. But the city is teeming with green Union recruits while President Lincoln and his War Department are focused on military strategy to take Richmond in Secessionist Virginia in order to bring the conflict to a swift end. Manassas, Virginia, near Bull Run Creek, is in their sights.

The very next morning, as Congress convenes once more, a dead body is found hanging from the crane beneath the unfinished dome of the Capitol. Lincoln's close confidant, Adam Speed Quinn, is called upon to determine whether the man had taken his own life, or if someone had helped him.

With the assistance of Dr. George Hilton and journalist Sophie Gates, Quinn investigates what turns out to be murder. But the former scout is about to be blindsided, for a Southern sympathizer in the city is running a female spy network reporting to the Confederacy, and she has an insidious plot to foil the Union Army's march to Manassas by employing the charms of one Constance Lemagne to get as close to Adam as possible . . .

Release date: January 28, 2020

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

The country was at war.

Almost overnight, Washington, D.C., metamorphosed from a small, muddy town with pigs and goats wandering the streets into a city bursting with soldiers from all over the North—and with all the hangers-on that accompanied them: laundresses, cooks, wives, and prostitutes, along with marching bands, horses, and wagons.

Pennsylvania Avenue, which stretched at a dog’s leg angle from the Capitol Building to the President’s House, had gone from being merely busy to almost impassable during the day. If it wasn’t one regiment of soldiers marching down the grand throughway, it was the marching band of a different one—not to mention all the other residential, supply, and visiting traffic that had swelled due to the sudden doubling of the city’s population.

Everyone in the city—whether they be Southern sympathizers (of which many remained, despite Washington now being the center of the Union Army—or perhaps because it was) or Union patriots—was on pins and needles, waiting for the “big battle.” Whenever that might come.

“Any day now,” people would say, expecting news that General McDowell would begin to send his troops to Richmond, where the new Confederate capital had been established.

But nothing happened. The troops stayed, the residents waited, and people argued about when and how and where the war would be over.

This air of seeming inactivity battled with the wild patriotism of the soldiers who’d come from the North, on fire and ready to fight and “put down those Southern Rebels!” The city stirred with excitement and anticipation while at the same time, bemoaned the fact that the roads were jammed, that military parades happened every day, sometimes multiple times a day, that there were rifles blasting and cannons shooting at all hours of the night, that the once-sleepy city had been jolted into a waking nightmare of thousands of men who’d come to fight . . . but had nothing to do but cause havoc.

Today being Independence Day, the Avenue had been closed to all traffic for a grand military parade of twenty thousand troops that marched past the President’s House. Mr. Lincoln himself stood on a small raised platform as the regiments from Pennsylvania clomped by under his watchful eye. Later, he went to the Capitol to speak to the newly-convened Congress.

The weather was perfect, neither hot nor humid as July in Washington often could be, but calm, warm, and sunny. Patriotic banners and flags hung and fluttered from poles, balconies, doorways, carriages, and horses. The celebrations had begun in the first hours of dawn with artillery salutes from locations all over the city and continued all day long with more dress parades and open houses at each regiment’s encampment, as well as concerts, speeches, and picnics. After the sun went down, fireworks sparkled over the darkening city. Chinese lanterns hung from trees, and lighted paper balloons filtered into the sky.

If the sounds of those celebratory salvos echoed the reality of the war that simmered beyond their city limits, few would make comment. Instead, most Washingtonians preferred to focus on remembering the independence of their nation, rather than the Secessionists that threatened to destroy the very Union they celebrated.

Ignoring the colorful pyrotechnics bursting in the sky above, Piney Tufts hurried down Seventh Street. The Willard Hotel, where all the rich and powerful tended to stay, was just here, and the Capitol loomed in the distance, down Seventh and along Penn Avenue to the east. He didn’t think he’d been followed from when he left home, but he needed to be certain, so he adjusted the hat down low over his brow and swerved toward the doorway of the fancy hotel to go around its block, just in case he was followed.

“Evening, sir,” said the elderly doorman at the Willard as he did his job with a flourish. His gloves were startlingly white in the yellowish gaslight, and his posture was perfectly erect. He didn’t even look up as one of the fireworks exploded above them with a loud boom.

Piney kept his face averted even as he waved to the doorman. He didn’t want to take the chance of anyone noticing him—although the chances of that were slim, considering the wild revelry of the soldiers in the streets.

In the last two months, the confounded troops had taken over everything. They had been bunked in every government building—the Treasury, the Patent Office, the President’s House, and even the Capitol. Their encampments took over every park and square, and the men were under little if any control by their superiors.

They conducted target practice wherever and whenever they wanted, and the altercations between them and Southern sympathizers were growing more and more common. Piney did his best to stay out of the way of any troops he came in contact with, even when they had been barracked in his very place of work. He kept his head down and focused on his work at the Patent Office, and that kept him out of trouble.

Surely it was because of that circumspection—and the fact that he was a Southern sympathizer, although quiet about it—that his benefactor had originally contacted him. At first, Piney believed he was helping his rebellious brethren when the task had been set before him.

But then one of the deliveries he’d picked up had torn open and he saw what was inside . . .

And then everything changed. He decided everything would change.

And now, tonight, he was in charge. He was in control.

And soon, he’d be getting a share of it all instead of the pittance his benefactor had promised him.

He drew in a deep breath, stuffing down the nerves that threatened to upset his stomach. He was being very careful. He knew what he was doing.

Pinebar Tufts was no fool.

The white Capitol Building, which was his destination, reflected all the reds, blues, and greens from the fireworks dancing in the sky above it. The new dome was only half-finished, and the mast of the massive crane being used to hoist the pieces into place jutted straight into the sky from inside the circular structure, rising far above the height of the construction. The tallest part of the crane looked like a giant finger pointing up out of the building, with the scaffolding below, just inside the dome, resembling the fist and thumb of a colossal hand.

Piney expected the sprawling building would be empty, for Congress had met much earlier today and by now, everyone would have gone home—or to the streets to watch the celebrations. This was a risk he was willing to take, and late at night during the Independence Day revelry would find the building as deserted as it would ever be. Even the bakeries in the basement would be empty for another two hours or more. All he had to do was slip past the Capitol’s night watchman, Billy Morris, and get inside.

As he approached the elegant white building, which had just been extended to twice its width by new wings on the south and north ends, Piney made his way around the massive pieces of steel and blocks of marble that sat on the grounds. They’d been untouched for months, right after the firing at Fort Sumter, but work had begun once more.

He paused at the top of the wide expanse of steps that led to the portico of the new Senate wing, using a shadow from the base of an unfinished column to hide. Had he heard something? It was difficult to tell, what with all the noise from fireworks and firearms. His palms were damp beneath their gloves and his heart thudded furiously, but after a moment, he slid from his dark hiding place and dashed up the stairs. The door he sought was a side door with an ill-fitting bolt that had not yet been replaced during the construction. It opened with a soft, low creak.

Only a month ago, it would have been impossible to gain entrance to the building unnoticed, for there’d been hundreds of soldiers barracked inside. Guards had protected every entrance, requiring a password to get through. Now, however, the seat of the United States government was quiet and still on the anniversary of its birth, waiting for Congress to reconvene tomorrow.

The only person inside the sprawling, unfinished complex was Piney, and he meant to retrieve the package that waited for him and quit the place as quickly as possible.

He hurried along on scuffed boots, relying on the moonlight and the flickering light from the waning fireworks, to find his way down the high-ceilinged corridors.

He never saw the figure that stepped from the shadows behind him.

An explosion crashed through his world—not from the celebratory pyrotechnics outside, but from the heavy blow that smashed into the back of his head.

Friday, July 5

Sophie Gates had been living in Washington, D.C., for nearly six months, and she’d yet to attend a live session of Congress. Not that she didn’t have a good excuse—between writing twenty (and frustratingly so) unpublished stories for the New York Times and New York Post, assisting one Mr. Adam Quinn with two murder investigations, and then most recently working with her new friend Miss Clara Barton to help collect supplies for wounded Union soldiers, Sophie had been far more busy than she’d ever been while living in New York. And because yesterday was the first day Congress had been in session since the war officially commenced in April, there hadn’t even been the opportunity to do so before now.

But it seemed Sophie was not the only female interested in watching the senators as they conducted the business of the fractured nation. As a woman who’d resorted to dressing as a man in order to gain access for her journalistic endeavors, she was pleasantly surprised to see a number of men and women approaching as she began to make her way up the broad marble steps to the East Portico of the Capitol.

She’d left her home in the Smithsonian Institute just after seven o’clock, planning to get inside and find a seat in the Senate gallery before the proceedings began—and before anyone tried to keep her out. She couldn’t count the number of times people—mostly men, but sometimes well-meaning women like her mother—had told her she couldn’t go there, or enter here, or see that or experience this.

“Miss Gates!” called a familiar southern voice. “Is that you? What a treat to see you so early this mornin’.”

Sophie turned—she was several stairs above—to see Miss Constance Lemagne just beginning to start up the steps. As usual, the young woman was dressed in an abundance of flounces, lace, and ribbons. Her skirt projected hoops far wider than were practical for day-to-day wear, but Sophie reluctantly admitted that the matching bonnet—trimmed with yellow roses tucked inside the brim—was beautiful. In fact, the southern belle looked pretty as a picture in her fresh, sunny dress with its cheerful green trim.

“Good morning, Miss Lemagne.” Sophie paused reluctantly for the other woman to catch up to her, for, however she might wish to, she couldn’t continue on without seeming rude. She noticed the woman was carrying a cloth bag that was much larger than the small drawstring purse that dangled from her wrist. “What brings you here so early?”

“Why, I want to make certain I get a good seat in the gallery,” she replied, drawing out her vowels. “It gets so crowded sometimes.”

Sophie was certain the woman purposely thickened her accent on occasion, like now—but for what reason, she didn’t know.

Yes, Sophie admitted privately—Miss Lemagne was a source of minor irritation to her, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. Or perhaps she didn’t particularly want to. It might have been the fact that the southerner was always dressed—overdressed—so perfectly and fashionably, or that when she spoke with that drawling accent, she seemed to simper like an empty-headed hen . . . or perhaps it had to do with the way the genteel young lady seemed to show up whenever Sophie was doing something interesting—and thrust herself into the situation.

Aside from that, Sophie didn’t really trust the woman. Miss Lemagne was, after all, the daughter of a plantation owner from Mobile, and she made no secret that her loyalties lay with Alabamians and the other states that had seceded. Sophie had recently tested out this theory by giving the other woman some information about the Union forces in Washington—exaggerated information—in hopes that it would somehow find its way to the Rebel army. Whether it did or didn’t, Sophie didn’t actually know. But Miss Lemagne had seemed particularly interested.

Sophie just didn’t trust her.

“And I wanted to make certain to save a seat for my dear friend Mrs. Greenhow,” Constance drawled as she joined Sophie on the top step. It was with no small bit of malice that Sophie realized the other woman was slightly out of breath from the ascent—likely due to the tightness of her stays. Surely no one’s waist was truly that narrow.

“She told me she would be a bit late this morning,” continued Constance. “I thought I would sit and make some drawings of the new Senate chamber while I waited for her to arrive.” She gestured to the larger bag hanging from her arm.

“What a nice way to spend the morning,” Sophie replied as they walked across the grand expanse of the portico toward the interior door. She kept just far enough away from Miss Lemagne so the other woman wouldn’t attempt to take her arm as young ladies often did when walking companionably together.

The smell of fresh bread filled the air, along with thick smoke from a number of chimneys shooting up silt and soot. Sophie knew that was because the basement of the Capitol had been turned into bakeries in order to help feed the thousands of troops that had descended on the city. Until late May, soldiers had even lived inside the Capitol—turning the place into a messy, smelly, chaotic barracks.

She’d written a story about their antics and sent it to the Post (where it was summarily ignored again), describing the way the soldiers swung from brand-new chandeliers that had been installed in the Senate Chamber and how one regiment had actually sent a message to Mr. Lincoln asking for a bottle of his best rum (she didn’t think the message had actually been delivered, thank Heaven). One day, another group of bored privates had attacked and nearly torn apart the chair that had belonged to Senator Jefferson Davis, who was now the commander in chief of the army they would soon face.

Sophie had walked through several times while the regiments were barracked there and saw and smelled things lining the beautiful marble corridors that belonged in a barnyard: food remnants, grease spills, even human waste. The place had reeked of odors and rot. Finally, the troops were kicked out so the newly renovated building could be put back to order before Congress convened on July 4 and so, hopefully, construction could be continued. Only the bakeries, which had taken over the entire cellar and pumped out silt and smoke nonstop throughout the day, remained as evidence of the influx of troops.

This morning, there were only two or three other people approaching the East Portico off Pennsylvania Avenue. The broad covered porch with its elegant columns had doors leading to the second floor and directly into the large circular room under the Capitol’s dome, known as the Rotunda.

Sophie was trying to figure out how to politely extricate herself from Miss Lemagne—a difficult proposition when there was no one else around with which to speak or a crowd in which to get lost.

“I declare, Mrs. Greenhow gives the most enticing salons,” Constance continued. She pronounced the word “sal-on” with an emphasis on the first syllable. “Everyone who’s anyone—at least, in the social scene—in Washington is there, you know. Perhaps you would like to attend some evening, Miss Gates.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Sophie said again, reaching for the heavy glass-and-brass door that led to the interior, for there didn’t seem to be a doorman. “And please, call me Sophie,” she added.

“Why, thank you. And you must call me Constance.”

“Yes, thank you, I will. I—”

Her words were cut off by a shout that echoed inside the round marble room, followed by a startled male scream.

Sophie pushed her way inside, dimly aware that Miss Lemagne—drat her!—was close on her hems, and saw the crowd gathering in the center of the space. They were all looking up.

“Dear heavens,” she breathed when she saw the man dangling from the huge crane that shot up into the dome.

“What is—oh my stars!” Constance was right at her elbow, and she sounded a little faint as she gripped Sophie’s arm.

Sophie didn’t pull away as she gaped up at the man hanging from a rope. She swallowed hard; she’d never seen a person who’d been hung before. She suspected the bloated, dead white face was a sight that would haunt her dreams.

“Who is it?”

“The poor fellow.”

“We should cut down the poor sot!”

“What’s that pinned on his coat? Is that a note?”

“I can’t read what it says.”

“Who do we send for?”

“Pinkerton?”

The small crowd was paralyzed by indecision, confusion, and morbid fascination. One of the men broke away and began to stride toward the base of the massive crane. He clearly intended to climb up and cut down the man, and that spurred Sophie into action.

“No, wait,” she said, then paused, shocked at how her shout reverberated so loudly within the round space. “Er—don’t climb up there yet, please, sir. We must send for—”

“Adam Quinn,” Constance said at the same time as Sophie uttered his name. “Send for Adam Quinn.”

“At the President’s House.” Sophie spoke a little louder than was strictly necessary, considering that she now had everyone’s attention. The group of people—all men—were staring at her. “He . . . he attends to things like this,” she added, studiously ignoring Miss Lemagne, who’d released her arm at last. “For the president.”

She heard some grumbling, but as no one else seemed to have a better idea, one of the bystanders was dispatched at a run to the Executive Mansion. Another individual, whom Sophie recognized by his uniform that he must be the doorman—he’d obviously been distracted from his duty—began to take control as even more people began to come in from the outside. He and two other men attempted to funnel the newcomers away from the scene. Sophie suspected this was simply so they wouldn’t gawk, not because the doorman had any sense that there might be important information that could be disturbed in the area.

“Damned fellow,” murmured a man at her elbow. “I say cut the bast—er, the sot—down. Why would anyone want to hang themselves in the middle of the Capitol?”

“I have no idea if anyone would,” Sophie said slowly, looking up at the fellow once more. Her heart gave a little bump when she realized what she was seeing. “Because I don’t think this man hung himself. I think he was murdered.”

Adam Quinn loped from the President’s House as fast as he could—which, in his case, was quite quickly for he’d been blessed with long and powerful legs that ate up distance with ease. In fact, the messenger who’d come from the Capitol with a garbled message about a hanging body had been left far behind him before Adam reached the Willard.

“Mornin’, Mr. Quinn,” called the hotel’s doorman with a wave.

“Good morning, there, Birch.” Even in his haste, Adam took note that the elderly black man seemed to have recovered fully from his injuries back in April, when he’d been attacked during Adam’s investigation of a death in the oval library of the President’s House.

“Guess there’s a big ruckus up at the Cap’tol, and it ain’t got nothing to do with that Congress for once,” added Birch as Adam went on by. “Reckon you’ll set it all to rights, sir.”

“I reckon I’ll try,” he replied, wondering not for the first time how it had happened that he, Adam Quinn, a simple, one-armed frontiersman from Illinois by way of Wisconsin and Kansas, had found himself being the one that people—particularly Mr. Lincoln—called on to “set things to rights” nowadays.

Adam had only been inside the Capitol twice since he arrived in late February as part of the president-elect’s security team, but both times he’d been slack-jaw impressed by the grandeur of the building. He’d never seen such a fine, white, imposing structure in his life. He might have seen pictures of what it had looked like before the additions of two new wings for the House and Senate, so he couldn’t compare it with what it looked like now, with the Capitol Expansion being nearly finished—but the massive, fancy columns and impossibly wide steps that led up to the entrance made him proud to be an American and a Unionist.

Adam jogged up those broad steps to the center of the complex, where the dome was marred by the crane’s mast jutting from its sliced-off top. His weather-beaten coat flapped around his thighs, and he’d barely remembered to shove a pair of gloves in his pockets—apparently, they were expected in society, but he never saw any reason for a man to wear gloves unless he was working or it was cold. His boots hadn’t been polished in two weeks, but he’d bought a new hat that wasn’t quite as battered as the wide-brimmed one he’d worn on the prairie. That was, he reckoned, an influence of living in the Executive Mansion where all sorts of dignitaries came and went, and where Mrs. Lincoln ruled the roost with a stylish, grandiose fist.

He really needed to find his own rooms, Adam thought as he pushed through the heavy glass door into the Rotunda. Somewhere with a little privacy—and a place that was near a barber, as he found it difficult to shave.

He strode into the large round space beneath the Capitol’s dome, which served as a sort of entrance hub that connected the two wings of Congress. The wings contained their members’ offices, which he’d learned were frequented by lobbyists, as well as the chambers where they met, argued, and created law.

“Over here, sir,” said the doorman, gesturing for him to move sharply to the left and out of the round room. “Please move on.”

“I’m here to examine the situation,” Adam told him, and dug into his right pocket. He handed the heavy card to the doorman.

Along the top, words were embossed in fancy gold script: OFFICE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Beneath the heading, Mr. Lincoln had scrawled in his own hand:

Adam felt a slight riffle of guilt at employing the placard, for, strictly speaking, Mr. Lincoln hadn’t asked him to become involved in this instance. In fact, the President had been in a meeting all morning with Secretary Cameron and didn’t even know about the situation—whatever it exactly was.

Which brought the question that had nagged him all the way from the White House: Who had sent for him?

“Mr. Quinn!”

He turned to see Miss Constance Lemagne pushing her way toward him, her pretty face framed by the arc of cheerful yellow roses inside her bonnet brim.

“Oh, thank heavens you’re here at last,” she said, taking his arm—his prosthetic arm, in fact—without hesitation. “Miss Gates and I just knew you’d be the one to help. It’s just terrible, Mr. Quinn.”

Adam blinked, instantly absorbing the information that the only two young ladies he knew in Washington were both here, as well as the answer to his internal question, and replied without hesitation, “Miss Lemagne, what a pleasure to see you this morning—though I reckon I wish it weren’t at such a difficult time.” These last words he added as he looked up to see a man dangling from the heavy base of the crane.

Dear God.

He closed his eyes and offered a short prayer for the dead man. Even if the poor sot had done it to himself, the man’s soul needed all the prayers it could get. Especially if he’d done it to himself.

“I suggested they wait to cut him down until you arrived,” said a brisk feminine voice behind him. “It was a difficult proposition, for of course the sight is beyond tragic and the poor man should be given his privacy as soon as possible, but I thought it prudent.”

“Good morning, Miss Gates,” he said automatically, even though his attention remained on the dead man. He’d seen plenty of men hung from trees during the Bloody Kansas conflict—including one of his friends, Johnny Brown, who’d been murdered by pro-slavers. He tamped down the flicker of rage before it distracted him.

“Oh yes, good morning, Mr. Quinn. Though not for him.” Miss Gates’s voice was sober as she looked up as well.

“No, I reckon not. Uh . . . thank you, Miss Gates and Miss Lemagne.” Adam stepped away, closer to below the dead man, as the southerner released his arm.

As in the past when faced with similar situations, Adam had a glimmer of uncertainty as he stood beneath the scuffed and worn soles of the man’s feet. Here he was again, with everyone in the room—literally—looking to him for answers.

“Does anyone know anything about what happened? Who found him?” he asked—then, catching himself, held up a hand to stop any response. “That can wait. All of that can wait. Let’s get him down from there.”

The base of the monstrous derrick filled the center of the Rotunda floor and was made with sturdy wooden beams that must have been cut from sky-high trees. Adam estimated the main mast was as much as eighty feet tall. It extruded beyond the top of a temporary roof made of canvas and wooden spokes in the shape of a gigantic parasol.

Adam clambered up the winding staircase built into the base and paused before stepping onto the beam from which the man had likely been standing when he threw himself off. The light was dim here beneath the oiled canvas ceiling and above the gaslights, but he could still make out disturbances in the layer of dust on the beam—footprints and other markings like scuffs.

Later, he would use a lantern to better illuminate the area so he could read the disruptions, but first the rope must be cut and the man lowered to the ground without adding to the disturbed dust. Adam looped his . . .