Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 4)

by Vincent Zandri

  PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI

  “Sensational…masterful…brilliant.”

  —New York Post

  “My fear level rose with this Zandri novel like it hasn’t done before. Wondering what the killer had in store for Jude and seeing the ending, well, this is one book that will be with me for a long time to come!”

  —Reviews by Molly

  “I very highly recommend this book…It’s a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists. . .Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another.”

  —Life in Review

  “(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”

  —The Times-Union (Albany)

  “I also sat on the edge of my seat reading about Jude trying to stay alive when he was thrown into one of those games… Add to that having to disarm a bomb for good measure!”

  —Telly Says

  “The action never wanes.”

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinal

  “Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting.”

  —Harlan Coben, bestselling author of Six Years

  “Tough, stylish, heartbreaking.”

  —Don Winslow, bestselling author of Savages

  Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse

  (A Chase Baker Thriller #4)

  Vincent Zandri

  Chase Baker and The Lincoln Curse

  (A Chase Baker Thriller No. 4)

  Copyright © 2015 by Vincent Zandri

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Bear Media LLC 2015

  4 Orchard Grove, Albany, NY 12204

  http://www.vincentzandri.com

  Cover design by Elder Lemon Art

  Author Photo by Jessica Painter

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  “The truth is I have never loved Henry more than I have this last month. I have wanted to wail with pity over him… He mutters more than ever of our hours in the box at Ford’s, forcing me to think of them, too.”

  —Clara Harris Rathbone speaking of her husband, Henry Rathbone, on the eve of their murder/suicide, December 23, 1893.

  What follows is inspired by true events.

  PROLOGUE

  Good Friday, April 14, 1865

  Ford’s Theater

  Washington, DC

  10:19PM

  The President has been shot.

  Triggered at point-blank range by John Wilkes Booth, a twenty-six-year-old fanatic Confederate sympathizer and stage actor, the bullet has managed to crack President Lincoln’s skull open like an egg. More specifically, the solid lead ball has penetrated the bone behind the left earlobe and lodged itself just above his right eye, nearly exiting the forehead. Despite frantic attempts by a physician (whom, it should be noted, is attending the evening performance of Our American Cousin at the invitation of the White House) to remove the bullet with his fingers, the projectile is lodged too deep inside the brainpan. He does, however, manage to remove some of the thicker blood clots, a process which is believed to help protect the President’s circulatory system from collapsing entirely.

  When the decision is made to move the President from the box down the narrow staircase to the lobby, the two Union soldiers and one heavyset grocer who are chosen for the task, move swiftly. The President’s head is bleeding a profuse amount of dark red, nearly black arterial blood. Knowing a bumpy carriage ride back to the White House will finish the President off for good, the men transport him instead across the street to the three-story Peterson house. There, the deadweight body is laid out diagonally across a bed far too small for its long legs, arms, and torso.

  By the President’s side is the short, stout, black-haired Mary Lincoln, who holds his lifeless hand tightly while a team of three doctor’s attempt in vain to resuscitate him, despite a fading pulse. Seated beside Mary, embracing her, is one of the two people who occupied the Presidential Box during the stage performance—the attractive, slightly built woman’s name is Clara Harris. She and her fiancé, Union Major Henry Rathbone, were only too happy to attend the play after General Grant and his wife declined.

  Near death himself, the tall, mustached Henry Rathbone is attended to by a fourth doctor who tries to stem the flow of blood that comes from a bone-deep gash extending from elbow to shoulder. The wound was received when Rathbone attempted to apprehend Booth after the Southern sympathizer made the fatal shot with a .44 caliber Derringer. If Henry had been able to make the jump on the killer just a split second earlier, he might have prevented Lincoln’s murder. But it was not to be.

  As Mary Lincoln wails in agony for God to spare her husband’s life, she turns to the petite, and far younger, Clara, resting her sobbing head in the woman’s lap.

  “Your dress,” Mary cries, “it’s covered in my husband’s blood.”

  Clara reaches out with her small, almost fragile hand, touches the blood-soaked fabric. She slowly turns to view her fiancé, who sits close by in a chair, wrestling both consciousness and an ever growing guilt over not having prevented the President’s assassination.

  “That’s Henry’s blood, too,” Clara whispers, turning back to the distraught First Lady. “Henry tried to stop the President’s killer. Do you understand, Mrs. Lincoln?”

  Sitting up slowly, Mary gazes upon Henry, locking eyes with the distressed young man.

  “You did your best, Major,” she says, her eyes cold and distant. “I understand you did…your best.”

  Just then, a gasp, and a final breath exhaled.

  Mary turns back to her husband, shoots up from her chair.

  “He’s dead!” she wails. “My husband is dead!”

  1

  Albany Rural Cemetery

  Albany, NY

  Present Day

  It’s true what they say. You can’t go home again. Not as anything other than a visitor and certainly not for very long. Which is why I almost never come back to this city of barely one hundred thousand inhabitants.

  Home being Albany. A city where nothing much ever happens and nothing much ever changes. It’s as if Father Time crossed it off his checklist and passed it by entirely.
>
  But, sometimes you just can’t avoid having to scrape together the money for a train ticket that will take you along the Hudson River line north to the place where you grew up and, in the process, experienced all your firsts—both good and bad. First communion. First ass kicking in the school yard. First kicking of ass in the school yard. First Pop Warner football game. First girlfriend. First kiss. First base. First time on second. First Time on third. First time you slide into home plate, regardless of how sloppy and awkward the process.

  …Thanks, for the memories…

  It’s also the place you snatched your first real job. At least, that’s how it happened in my case when I went to work for the old man at the ripe old age of twelve. Now that I think about it, my old man wasn’t all that old at the time. He was maybe ten years younger than I am now when I went to work excavating and sandhogging for the Tommy Baker Excavating company. It was a job that had been waiting for me since birth and, in many ways, a job that I was expected to perform, regardless of the fact that one day becoming a writer and an explorer, just like Jack London, had become my dream even as a pre-teen.

  But then, according to my old man, dreams were for silly people. What mattered was the earth you could hold in your hand and scoop up with a mechanized bucket. The earth was as real as something could possibly get. Like Dad always said, “From dirt we came and to dirt we will return.”

  Digging in the dirt also paid well. Very well, in fact. Something my dad always tried to impress upon me as my adolescence turned into young adulthood, and adulthood shifted towards middle age. “Being a writer and an explorer and even a private detective are all noble occupations indeed, son,” he said to me not long before he died. “But being noble does not pay the bills. You should know that by now.”

  If only Dad could take a quick look at my less than stellar bank account these days, he’d force a shovel in my hand and bark, “Now get to work!”

  But, back in the days when I had my whole life ahead of me, I quickly came to realize that being a digger with Dad’s company didn’t mean I had to put all of my dreams on hold. In fact, sandhogging afforded me some significant exploration experience, especially when Dad was hired by some university or college to excavate archeological sites that took us all the way around the world to Egypt or Peru or even China. We weren’t by any means the most important men on an archeological dig. If anything, we were considered—by the more educated, doctoral treasure hunters—to be a bit of an unwashed and untamed nuisance.

  But let me tell you, there’s no better thrill in the world than feeling the tooth of a backhoe bucket touching upon a stone sarcophagus. A gentle, yet powerful, sensation that travels from the ancient stone into the empty bucket, up the backhoe arm, into the cab, through the controls, and straight into flesh and bone. Dad knew this feeling all too well, which is why he chose to work with the schools on their digs in place of more lucrative jobs like digging foundations for commercial buildings all over the city. Dad was no stranger to his own noble pursuits now and then, too.

  But, despite the golden opportunity of his handing me the keys to his business one day, I think Dad knew I wouldn’t be able to call Albany home for too long, even if we did spend considerable time away from it on our various adventures. The world was a big place, to be sure. My dreams were even bigger. And Albany was way too small and, well, way too small-minded for my tastes.

  Which is why I took off when I had the chance, venturing off to lands unknown, supporting myself any way I could. Sure, Dad was disappointed (and on occasion worried), but I also like to think he was proud of me in his own way. What father doesn’t want his son to make it on his own, no matter the difficulties and the dangers? That didn’t prevent him from sending me a much-needed check now and again. A practice he lovingly maintained even after I turned the corner on forty.

  Now, I’ve come back home for one last meeting with dad.

  How is it possible to meet with someone who’s been dead for almost six years? Dad’s about to be exhumed and reinterred which, in plain language, means his casket is going to be dug up, opened, and whatever’s left of his corpse transferred to another, newer casket which will be laid to rest in a vacant piece of cemetery property located elsewhere. Why? So that the land his present grave occupies can be utilized for a new town road.

  Sorry Pop, but that’s progress for you…

  In honor of Dad and the many cash favors he did for me over the years, I volunteered my services for excavating his grave, which involved an official application to the cemetery that would require signatures from both the local Albany Police Department and the Albany Hall of Records. Once my services were approved, the cemetery allowed me use of their backhoe, which turns out to be an old, somewhat rusted CAT that probably rolled off the assembly line while I was doing bong hits in my Providence College dorm room.

  After issuing a smile and a nod to both the County Coroner and the head of cemetery maintenance, who’ve both shown up for the event, I climb into the cab and sit myself down in a black pleather seat held together with matching black electrical tape. Turning the seat around so that it faces the bucket, I place my hands on the controls. The round, heavy-duty plastic handles attached to the floor-mounted sticks feel like an old friend. So does the smell of gasoline and oil when I toe tap the gas, sending a burst of power into the engine.

  Maybe you never forget how to ride a bike, but the same can be said of running a backhoe, especially when you were trained by your old man back when you were twelve and could barely reach the pedals. As I feel the vibration of the machine, I send the sharp metal teeth into the green, grass-covered soil, and scoop out the first full yard of Dad’s own earth, depositing it off to the side. I continue the process until I feel that familiar tap of the metal tooth on hard concrete, and I know I’m home. I’m knocking on the concrete encasement that houses Dad’s casket.

  Slipping out of the cab, I instruct the cemetery workers to apply the chain to the backhoe and the reinforced concrete casement cover.

  “Let’s pull my dad out of the ground,” I say. “And be careful not to wake him.”

  Half an hour later, my dad’s surprisingly water damaged casket is set off to the side of his now open grave and the gravestone that watches over it. The cemetery keeper is standing by, as is the coroner who must be present at all exhumations. While the workers have no choice but to use a pry bar to open a lid sealed shut due to rust, I feel my heart beating in my throat. I mean, I know my dad’s a dead guy, but why do I feel like I’m the prodigal son? Why do I feel like once the casket lid opens, my dad’s gonna sit up straight, look me in the eye, and say, “Chase, it’s about time you grew up, came home, and took over the excavation business.”

  My mouth goes dry. My feet feel like they aren’t planted on solid ground but, instead, are levitating a foot above the earth. A click reverberates across the tree-covered, rolling, green cemetery plain. The lid’s pried open. Then, acting in unison, the two workers lift the heavy cover. For a brief moment, they lock eyes on the body that’s inside and then, stepping back and away from the box, shoot me a look indicating that it’s my turn.

  I step forward and, with my heart pulsing up against my sternum, peer into the casket.

  2

  To say my dad looks pretty good for a guy who’s been dead going on six years is an exaggeration. I mean, what should a man dead that long look like anyway? But I can say this, he doesn’t look all that bad. Standing before the open casket, I’m reminded of a story my grandfather once told me about the last person left alive to have born witness to the body of President Abraham Lincoln. The man, who was a young boy in the early 1920s at the time, had accompanied his father to Lincoln’s grave in Washington, DC which was being exhumed in order to reinter the body into a tomb that would be buried entirely in concrete. In other words, a tomb so sound and incorruptible it would be safe even from the most passionate grave robber.

  Story goes that while a handful of workers opened up Lincoln’s casket,
the boy looked on in awe. He was also more than a little bit frightened. But when the boy caught sight of the tall, bearded man dressed in the black suit of the mid-1800s, the rose he’d been buried with still pinned to his lapel, he knew precisely who he was looking at.

  Abe Lincoln.

  What shocked the boy most about the body was not the smell, which was both sweet and stale, but the President’s skin which had turned entirely black. As if in death, God had turned Lincoln into the very species of man he fought so hard to liberate and, in turn, took a bullet to the head for his efforts.

  The same can be said of my dad.

  In the six years since he’d first been buried, his skin has turned a rich, brown-black. It’s also shrunk, covering his bony skull like a mask more than an actual face. Aside from the occasional moth-like hole, his suit looks just as fresh as it did the day we laid him to rest. And, just like Lincoln, his boutonniere is still pinned to his lapel, even if it has grayed and dried over time.

  Reaching into the casket, I place my hand on top of his now bone-thin hands which are resting on a concave stomach.

  “Hi, Dad,” I say. “We’re gonna get you some new digs today. Better joint, with a better view. A nice new casket and nice new neighbors, too. You’re gonna love it.”

  I look into his eyes, which are closed and flat, and I imagine his response.

  “Just hurry it up, Kid. It’s cold up here.”

  Wiping damp eyes with the backs of my hands, I turn away from the casket.

  “You guys can do the rest,” I say, stepping past the coroner and the cemetery keeper, my eyes focused on the pickup truck rental parked on the near shoulder of the inner cemetery road. I don’t cover more than twenty feet before the cop cruiser pulls up and a man steps out.