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

by Vincent Zandri

  “You Chase Baker?” he says.

  “Depends on who’s asking.”

  “The APD is asking. And trust me when we say we don’t like to repeat ourselves.”

  3

  He’s a tall guy. Taller than me anyway. Older too, but in pretty good shape. The old-fashioned trenchcoat he’s wearing makes him look like a character from an old Sam Fuller detective movie. The Naked Kiss maybe. Or Pickup on South Street. Pulp films aired on the Saturday CBS Late Night Movie back when I was a kid. Movies the old man forbade me to watch on the portable black and white set up in my room, but that I watched anyway, punishment be damned. Chase the ballsy.

  His full head of hair is white and cut like a jar-headed Marine and if I have to guess, I’d say he’s no stranger to the local road racing circuit. I peg him for the type of police officer who wouldn’t know what the hell to do with himself if he were to retire, since it’s rare to find one still on the job at his age. In my experience anyway.

  “My name is Nick Miller,” he says. “Homicide Detective Nick Miller, you want the full formal boat.” Holding out his hand. “Sorry to disturb you on such a, what shall I call it, solemn occasion.”

  I take the extended hand in mind, squeeze it hard to show him that I’m tough and dangerous even if my .45 isn’t stored against my ribs like it usually is.

  “Chase,” I say. “Chase Baker. But then, you probably already know that.”

  He squints blue eyes, his point of view shifting from me to Dad’s still open casket back to me again.

  “Gotta say,” he says, raising his hand, tossing the coroner a quick but polite wave, “I’ve witnessed more than my fair share of exhumations over the course of my career, especially when a witness or a defendant wasn’t entirely convinced that a perp was safely buried six feet under. But I’ve never seen a family member actually get involved in the excavation process. I was surprised when I saw your name on the application.”

  “It’s in our bones,” I say. “I used to be a digger and a sandhog.” Crossing my arms. “Thought you said you were a homicide detective. How’d you see my name on the application in the first place?”

  He cocks his head. “We’re pathologically understaffed at the APD, meaning we all pitch in where we can, whether we like it or not. Plus, cops can’t keep their mouth shut. When a not so unknown guy like you comes back into town with the specific intent to dig up his dad, word gets around pretty fast.”

  Me, relaxing my arms. “SmAlbany.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “You haven’t forgotten. So what exactly is a Sandhog?”

  “We work archeological sites. Dig up ancient artifacts. Stuff like that.”

  “Like Indiana Jones.” He winks.

  “Not really, but if that helps you understand what we do then yes, like Indy. Now, what can I do for you, Detective? I’d like to get back to New York. I’m working on a new novel and God knows I need the advance check something awful.”

  “Word on the street is that you’re a bit of a Renaissance man, Mr. Baker,” he says. “Digger like his father before him, treasure hunter, published novelist, and even a private detective from time to time. It’s the last of these talents I’m interested in right now.”

  I take a step forward, dig my truck keys from out of the pocket on my worn bush jacket, or what my spunky ten-year-old daughter refers to as “Dad’s silly jungle jacket.”

  “I don’t work up here, Detective,” I say, walking towards my truck. “I’m only here to see that my dad gets his new home and then I’m on my way.”

  “I just told you we’re understaffed and could use a seasoned private dick to pick up the slack. The job also comes with a pretty decent payout. Three hundred per day plus expenses.”

  The little hairs on the back of my neck prick up. But not enough to keep me from my writing desk. After all, a published book is the financial gift that keeps on giving, year after year after year.

  I keep on walking.

  “Abraham Lincoln,” he says. “The job involves digging up brand new dirt on President Abraham Lincoln.”

  The keys gripped in my hand, I stop. Turn.

  “Lincoln,” I say. “As in the Abe shot-in-the-back-of-the-head-by-John-Wilkes-Booth-up-in-that-creepy-Ford’s-Theater-Box Lincoln.”

  “The Abraham Lincoln assassination,” he nods. “Were you aware there’s a direct archeological link between Lincoln’s murder on April 14, 1865 and to your humble hometown of Albany, New York? The hamlet of Loudonville right up the road here to be exact?” He raises his right hand, points his thumb over his shoulder in the direction he’s referring to.

  I shake my head, but I sense he knows exactly how to bait a history hunter like me. Then, once snagged, how to reel me in without breaking the fishing line. Cash payoff or no cash payoff.

  “Tell you what,” he says, “why don’t we take a quick ride? If you don’t like what I’m showing you, or it doesn’t get a rise out of you, or the money’s not worth it, then no harm done. Have a nice trip back down south or across the pond or both and good luck on the new novel. Fair enough?”

  I just want to get out of Albany, get back to work, now that I’ve seen Dad for what will surely be the last time. But Abraham Lincoln. His assassination. Some sort of archeological connection to my hometown. How can I not be interested? The blood racing through my veins should be proof enough of that.

  “Okay, Detective, I’m sufficiently hooked.”

  His face lights up as he opens the back door on his cruiser, motions his hand to direct me that way.

  “Get in,” he says.

  Exhaling a breath, I get in the car. He shuts the door behind me, slips into the front shotgun seat while the uniformed cop behind the wheel pulls out.

  “We gonna stop for donuts on the way?” I say.

  “Very funny,” Miller says. “Gotta love private dicks. Even part-time ones like yourself.”

  “Sorry,” I say, as we drive through the cemetery gates, “couldn’t resist.” Chase the comedian.

  4

  We drive down a busy suburban road in a westerly direction for maybe a mile until we come to the intersection of the main north/south street connecting the city of Albany with the Northern suburbs. The official state designation of the byway is Route 9 or Loudon Road. But, the square blue placard installed on the roadside by the Albany Historical Society claims its original name to be the “Kings Highway” after King George whose army of Redcoats used it as a supply route between Albany and Fort William Henry fifty-plus miles to the North on the aptly named Lake George. Or so I quickly read through the backseat window while stopped at the traffic signal.

  The hamlet of Loudonville was also a popular stopover for weary travelers looking for a hot meal and a warm bed for the night—historical information about my hometown that I am not entirely unfamiliar with, but never took a special interest in before. Now I know it has something to do with Abe Lincoln’s murder, though.

  We proceed south in the direction of the city along a stretch of roadway that I’m perfectly acquainted with since it’s where all the rich people live. Lining both sides of the King’s Road are mega-houses built before the war—World War II that is—set on plots of land large enough to support small neighborhoods. After about a mile, the driver hooks a right onto Cherry Tree Road and slowly makes the drive up a steady incline, coming to a stop outside the second house on the left-hand side.

  It’s an old white colonial with black shutters built prior to the war all right…the Civil War. It’s been added onto over the decades so that what must have started out as a simple two-story cottage, has now become a large home that lacks any semblance of symmetry with its attached rooms and bedrooms. The place looks more like an inn or bed-and-breakfast you might stop at for the night in rural Vermont than a residence for a single family.

  The place is also shuttered.

  Yellow ribbon containing block letters that read KEEP OUT. CRIME SCENE. surrounds the lawn like a makeshift fence. Some of the same yellow
ribbon covers a front door which also sports a piece of thick plywood screwed over the opening.

  We sit and stare at the house for a minute, as if waiting for it to do something like wink at us, for instance.

  “Crime scene,” I say after a time. “I’ll bite. What happened here that makes it a crime scene? And why’s it boarded up like that?”

  Miller sets his elbow on the seatback, peers at me over his shoulder.

  “It’s not just a crime scene, like the tape says. It’s also considered hallowed ground by some. You might even say the story of Lincoln’s assassination doesn’t end in DC, but right here instead.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “You ever heard of Clara Harris and Major Henry Rathbone, Baker?”

  I rack my brain for a connection, but the names are unfamiliar.

  “Here’s an irony for you considering my chosen career path: I got a C in American History, Detective.”

  “Well, I’m told William Faulkner flunked freshman English at Mississippi U. And even if you got an A in history, I’m still not sure you would’ve heard of them. They’ve become a sort of footnote in the annals of one of the country’s most notorious murders.”

  Just then a car comes up on our right side, pulls over in front of the cruiser, parks. It’s a black BMW. A man gets out. He’s big and portly, his hair black and wavy, but so long in the back it hangs off his shoulders. He’s sporting a thick black handlebar mustache, and he’s wearing a brown ascot to go with his brown wool jacket.

  “Who’s that?” I ask. “The ghost from another century past?”

  “Our resident Lincoln historian,” Miller says, gesturing with his hand for the heavyset, mustached man to hop into the cruiser. “This guy most definitely got an A in American history. Trust me on that.”

  The back door opens and the man gets in, sitting himself down heavily.

  “Mr. Chase Baker, please meet Albany State University Professor of History and Civil War Reenactment aficionado, Theodore Balkis. Ted Balkis, please meet Chase Baker.”

  The professor holds out his hand. I grab it and shake. It’s thick and puffy. Feels like a cold, wet fish. A blowfish maybe. I release the hand, wipe the perspiration on my pant leg discreetly.

  “You’re no stranger to archeological digs, so I hear?” Balkis says, reaching into his jacket pocket, pulling out a kerchief to wipe beaded sweat from his brow. The inflection in his voice is sort of uppity. Snobbish. Like a wealthy Long Island lock-jawed housewife speaking down to you. It’s also a bit on the effeminate side, also just like a Long Island housewife.

  I shoot a glance at Miller.

  “Looks like more than a few people knew I was making the trip up here,” I say.

  “Told you,” he says. “We really need your help and we’re willing to fork out some of Albany’s hard-earned tax dollars in exchange for it.”

  Eyes back on Balkis.

  “I’ve been on my share of digs,” I say. “Mostly I write. On occasion, I’m a private detective, among other things. Money’s always tight these days and self-employment taxes are a bitch.”

  “A man with many hats. How I envy you the freedom to be whatever you want to be, taxes be damned. Have I read anything you’ve written?”

  I let the question go ignored, because if he’s gotta ask…

  Miller breaks in, “As you know, Ted, I brought Mr. Baker here to see if he could help with our little problem here at the Clara Harris Rathbone house. I thought you might first fill him in on the history of the joint.”

  Balkis smiles. “I’d be happy to fill him in on the history of the uhhh…joint…as you so aptly put it, Detective.” Then, he looks at me, with big dark eyes. “But it all begins with April 14, 1865. So what do you know about the Lincoln assassination mystery, Mr. Baker?”

  I shrug my shoulders like I’m back in high school history class thinking about girls and working on that C.

  “What mystery?” I say. “Wasn’t the mystery of who shot Lincoln and why solved when John Wilkes Booth was cornered and killed?”

  “Precisely,” Balkis says. “But few people know about the man who nearly prevented the assassination from happening along with the true story of what happened to the murder weapons. You see, Mr. Baker, it all begins with a young couple who were invited to share the Presidential Box with the Lincolns on the night of the assassination. One, Union Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris.”

  While we sit in the car staring out at the silent house, Balkis goes on to tell a tragic story about two young, seemingly normal people, caught up in some extraordinary historical circumstances when the box they occupied in Ford’s Theater was invaded by John Wilkes Booth—the tall, handsome, fiercely Southern Confederate actor who put the barrel of a Derringer to Lincoln’s head and pulled the trigger, changing the course of American—if not world—history forever.

  “You see, Mr. Baker,” the professor goes on, “the moment Booth burst into the box, Henry Rathbone tried to save his President by leaping towards the killer’s gun. My guess is he would have gladly taken the bullet himself. But he was just too far away and Booth was able to complete his grisly deed.

  “However, that didn’t stop Henry from apprehending the killer. But Booth was packing a fighting knife with an eight-inch blade, and he managed to cut Henry’s arm so badly he nearly bled out on the spot.”

  “So what’s this house got to do with what you’re telling me?”

  “Although Clara and Henry settled in Washington, DC after they were married, this home is where they came to live during the hot summer months since it was close to Clara’s father who worked in the New York State Senate. Among the personal articles they brought with them into the marriage and into this house were the white dress that Clara wore on that fateful night…a dress that was stained with both her husband’s blood and the blood from the President. They also brought with them the Derringer that killed Lincoln and the fighting knife that cut Henry’s arm.”

  My pulse picks up. I grew up in this community, not far from here. If what he’s saying is gospel,

  I had no idea what lie right under my nose—the relics and the history.

  “Shouldn’t that stuff have immediately gone to a museum?” I say.

  “One would think so,” Balkis says. “But after the assassination trial and the executions that followed, Henry Rathbone began to obsess with Lincoln’s murder. He began to plague himself with the question: What if I’d just been a little bit quicker? Well, sir, perhaps if he had been just a little bit quicker, he might have indeed saved the President’s life.”

  It strikes me as odd that Professor Balkis, who is clearly a Yankee, sometimes takes on a fake southern accent. But then, he’s clearly got a flair for the dramatic, at least, judging from the way he dresses and styles himself. I can only wonder which side he chooses during the civil war reenactments.

  “What happened to Henry and Clara?”

  “They had three kids—two boys and a girl. They tried raising them as responsible parents, but the assassination always hung over them like a beating, bleeding heart. And as time went on, their mental capacities, especially Henry’s, began to disintegrate. Clara became convinced that Lincoln occupied her house, cursing the place forever. Meanwhile, Henry also believed that Lincoln was visiting him at the house and that Lincoln wasn’t happy with him. You see, the President blamed the Major for not saving him from Booth’s bullet.”

  Balkis sets his beefy sweaty hand on my thigh sufficiently creeping me out.

  “What happened after that?” I say, shaking the hand off.

  “Legend has it that Rathbone began to drink heavily. His behavior became erratic. The US Army had no choice but to retire him as a Colonel. He scared the children with his tirades and rants. He shouted out the name of Lincoln in his sleep. He shouted out the name of Booth. Once, he even attacked Clara in the middle of the night while they lie together in bed, thinking she was the Booth of his dreams.”

  Balkis’ eyes g
row wider with each word spoken, each bit of information revealed. Like a world-class orator gracing the stage.

  “It all became worse,” he goes on, his voice now assuming a nefarious, low-key tone. “On the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, reporters would come from far away and beg to speak with the two people, besides Mary Lincoln, who last saw the President alive. Always the question of why Henry didn’t do more would arise, driving him even madder. In a word, life had become unbearable with the tremendous burden of Lincoln’s assassination weighing so heavily on his shoulders.

  “Then, as the story goes, Christmas of 1893 while they were living at the summer house for the holidays, Henry went into a rage, believing not only that Clara was having an affair, but that she was doing so out of shame for his having failed to save the President. Henry went upstairs to his bedroom. There he found the Derringer and the fighting knife in his top dresser drawer where it was stored along with Clara’s blood-stained dress.”

  The portly professor is now making like a pistol with one hand and a fist with the other as if gripping a knife.

  “Loading the pistol and pocketing the knife, he headed back downstairs where, in front of the children and their Christmas tree, he shot his wife in the back of her head. Dropping the pistol, he pulled out his knife and proceeded to stab himself in the stomach multiple times. Some say he survived and was institutionalized, but many believe he died that night and that it took him twelve agonizing hours to die. The exact amount of hours it took Lincoln to die, as if Rathbone had made a contract with God for it to happen that way. However…” His voice trails off.

  “However what?” I say.

  “No one has ever confirmed the Henry Rathbone/Clara Harris murder/suicide story. No police reports were ever filed, and nothing exists in the Hall of Records other than a statement about their being buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery in a family plot purchased years earlier.”