The Lincoln Conspiracy

by Timothy L. O'Brien

  “Damned for all time and proud of it. Damned for being a cutter,” Powell said, his thick frame filling the metal screen at the top of his cell door as he pressed into it. His mouth was visible through a single opening at the bottom of the white canvas hood enveloping his head. “Mmm-hmmm, I say, mmm-hmmm. I can almost smell it. I know we have a fine specimen of femininity in our midst today.”

  As they continued moving along, Powell pushed up against the weight of the shackles on his wrists, curled his fingers through the screen on the door, and stuck his tongue through one of the gaps as he licked the bars.

  “Get the sister inside my cell to save my mortal soul,” he said, cackling. “Get her in here and I will make her mine.”

  The next cell was empty, in keeping with Hartranft’s orders that the prisoners had to have gaps between their cells to prevent them from communicating with one another. The guard stopped at the fourth cell and raised a key to the door.

  “She’s in here,” he said.

  The door offered a low, heavy grunt as it swung back on its hinges, and the block of light that fell into the cell illuminated the legs and feet of its occupant, who was seated on a wooden plank that also served as her bed.

  Mary Surratt didn’t speak or stand up as Father Walter and Fiona entered the cell.

  “May we visit alone with Mrs. Surratt, please?” the priest asked the guard. “Her spiritual needs are a private matter.”

  “I’ll need to lock you in with her, then, Father.”

  The guard slammed the door shut again, leaving the cramped cell almost completely dark save for the patchwork that came through the top of the door and drew a faint checkerboard on the far wall. There wasn’t enough room in the cell for the three of them to move, and neither the priest nor the nun could see Mrs. Surratt’s face. But they could hear the soft whimpering spilling out of her in breathy arcs.

  “Mary, I’ve brought someone special to see you today.”

  “I am going to die in here, Father Walter. I swear, all that I can be certain of anymore is that I am to die in here.”

  “Your family and I are working night and day to compel President Johnson to consider the charges against you and to free you. I am putting my faith in the Lord that you shall soon be free of your tormentors.”

  “My family can’t do a thing to help me, not a thing,” Mary said. “And the one who might be able to come to my aid—my own son, my Johnny, my flesh and blood—has abandoned me.”

  “I think Sister Grace here might be able to lighten your burden. I have brought her with me so that you may have a woman to confide in.”

  Mary began whimpering again, rocking back and forth on the plank until it squeaked in protest. Her whimpers gave way to a soft cry, and when the priest stepped over and put his hand on her shoulder, she took his other hand and kissed the back of it.

  “Thank you for your many and varied kindnesses, Father Walter,” she said, sliding off the plank and kneeling in front of him, her face still obscured in the darkness.

  She and her priest prayed together for several minutes, and when they were done, Father Walter bent down and whispered into her ear.

  “I’ll come back soon,” he said to her as he stood back up and called to the guard, asking for an escort to see if other prisoners sought spiritual counsel. The guard consented to leaving the door to Mrs. Surratt’s cell open so that she and the nun would have more light, but insisted on another guard standing watch at the end of the walkway.

  “May I sit next to you?” Fiona asked.

  “Father Walter has told me why you are here,” Mary said, sliding down to one end of the plank and into the light, revealing her face to Fiona for the first time.

  Mary was sturdy and plain, her brown hair parted in the middle and swept into a simple bun. Her warm gray eyes floated above crescent-shaped pouches darkened by a lack of sleep, and she had the stubby, chafed fingers and thick nails of a woman who had worked with her hands her entire life. She was not a beautiful woman, but she was not of the Amazonian sort, as the papers would have had it. She was, like Mrs. Lincoln, thrown off kilter by the disappointments in her life.

  Mary bent toward Fiona and whispered into her ear. “Father Walter said you are a confidante of the president’s widow.”

  “An acquaintance, not a confidante.”

  “I must tell you that I hated her husband and I have no joy in my heart for the niggers,” Mary said. “But never in the world, even if it was the last word I have ever to utter, was I part of a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln. Never.”

  Fiona drew away from her for a moment and then leaned back toward her.

  “Your son?”

  “What of my son?”

  “Has he any complicity in this?”

  “He was John Wilkes Booth’s partner in many things, but he never spoke to me of murder.”

  “What did he speak of?”

  “My son is an enthusiast. He is enamored of many things—except for his mother.”

  She balled her hands into fists and dug them into her eyes, her back convulsing as she sobbed. The guard came down the walkway and peered in for several moments before leaving the women alone again.

  “To have birthed a son, to have raised him and fed him and dutifully brought him into the embrace of the Church, only to have him abandon me,” she said, trying to bring her voice down as she continued to sob. “I do not know Mrs. Lincoln, but I do know that gossip in the District had it that she, too, shares the curse of an ungrateful and spiteful son. And I am imprisoned here in his stead, I tell you. I barely knew Mr. Booth, but my son consorted with him regularly. Yet he is not to be brought into this manhunt rather than me?”

  She drew a carte de visite of a slender, pale young man from inside her blouse and began to tear it in half.

  “Wait!” Fiona said. “Is this your son?”

  “It is, Sister Grace. He is a demon to me now.”

  She threw the image to the floor. Soldiers had begun drilling in the courtyard outside, and the sounds of their boots hitting the ground in unison wafted into the cellblock.

  “What were your son’s enthusiasms?” Fiona asked.

  Mary pushed the tears off her cheeks.

  “He loved Dixie, for certain. And the Church. And Elmira.”

  “Elmira?”

  “Elmira, New York. There is a Union prison camp there where Confederate soldiers are held. He was there frequently, plotting to free the soldiers. I have told the authorities this. I and many other sympathizers gave him money to support his activities there. I have told this to Mr. Stanton’s investigators as well.”

  “Did he live in Elmira?”

  “No, he did not. He stayed in Manhattan whenever he went up there.”

  “With whom did he stay?”

  “A benefactor. Someone of ample means.”

  “Do you recall his name?”

  “John never spoke his name to me.”

  “How is it that you came to know of a wealthy benefactor, then?”

  “On two occasions, deep into his drink, he said his friend in New York could book him free passage on the trains anytime he wanted to go to Elmira. He also said this man was a colossus who was going to change the world.”

  “That is all that he ever said about him?”

  “He referred to him as Maestro.”

  THE GUARD AND Father Walter found Mrs. Surratt on her bed, doubled over and sobbing again, when they returned to the cell. Fiona was next to Mary, rubbing her back.

  “Sister Grace, we have little time, I am afraid. Only fifteen minutes or so,” the priest said. “There is a prisoner on the block above us whom I think we need to encourage to pray with us. None of the others here say they have the need.”

  Fiona got up from the bed and scooped the carte de visite from beneath her foot, slipping it inside her habit.

  Father Walter put his hand on Mary’s head, telling her he would try to return the next day, and Fiona patted her on the shoulder, following the priest out o
f the cell. As the guard turned the key and the bolt slid back into its place, Mary stopped crying and rushed to her side of the door.

  “Sister Grace, wait,” she shouted.

  “Yes, Mrs. Surratt?”

  “You must never, ever have children. They will betray you.”

  The guard guffawed.

  “She’s losing her mind now, ain’t she?” he said as they neared the stairway. “Thinking nuns are going to have babies.”

  “Imagine,” Fiona said softly.

  THE GUARD STOPPED at a cell in the middle of the third tier and rapped on the door.

  “The priest is back for a visit, McFadden,” he said. “Last chance.”

  “I’ll keep watch over my soul myself,” Temple replied through the bars. “On your way. I’ll be fine.”

  “But you can’t do it by yourself, Diogenes,” Fiona said.

  “What?” the guard asked.

  The planks on Temple’s bed creaked as he stood up inside the cell. He cleared his throat and shuffled. He cleared his throat again, trying to find his voice and struggling to keep his excitement at bay.

  “It sounds like you don’t just have a priest out there.”

  “No, there’s a nun, too,” the guard said.

  Temple shuffled closer to the door, pausing for a moment. The chain on his handcuffs clanked and he caught his breath. My angel. My guardian angel.

  “Right, perhaps I do need a hand in prayer,” he said. “Show them in.”

  “You sit down on your bed until I have this door open.”

  Temple shuffled back and the guard turned the key. Fiona entered the cell and Father Walter stepped in behind her, filling the space between her and the guard. Fiona slipped her hand inside her sleeve and withdrew the metal tube Alexander had gotten from Pinkerton and dropped it into the top of Temple’s boot.

  Temple held her eyes with his as she straightened up and smoothed her skirts.

  Like a windstorm

  Punishing the oak trees

  Love shakes my heart

  “My guests, I have to inform you that your hour has run its course,” Hartranft shouted up from below.

  The general had returned, accompanied by two guards. Mary Surratt began wailing at the sound of his voice, her cries echoing into the corners of the ceiling that spread across the top of the cellblock.

  “Goddammit, bag her head, too,” Powell screamed from his cell. “Bag her fuckin’ head and shut her up.”

  Father Walter came out of Temple’s cell, and Fiona held her husband’s eyes for a moment longer before leaving as well.

  “I haven’t had a chance to pray with this one yet,” the priest shouted down to Hartranft.

  “One blessing,” the general responded.

  Father Walter stepped forward and traced a cross on Temple’s forehead.

  “For your sins, the Lord forgives you,” the priest said. “For the challenges that lie ahead, the Lord supports with his strength and wisdom.”

  Father Walter backed out of the cell again. As the guard forced the iron door shut, Fiona faced Temple through the narrow opening as it shrank, still holding his eyes with her own. Before the door closed, she brought her hand up over her heart. The chains on Temple’s handcuffs clanked again as he pressed both of his hands against his chest in response.

  Hartranft ordered two cavalry officers to escort Father Walter and Sister Grace’s carriage from the Old Arsenal to St. Patrick’s, and they set out from the penitentiary just as the sun began to set.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE SPILLAGE

  Temple lay back on the bed planks and raised his left leg high, shaking it until the metal tube that Fiona had given him dropped onto his stomach. He pressed inward on the hinge in its middle to open it, and a long metal lock pick fell into his lap, along with three tightly rolled sheets of parchment. He slid the papers off his lap and spread his hands apart; there were only three links in the chain holding the cuffs together, and he could barely get the angle and the leverage he needed to jimmy the pick into the lock at the bottom of the left cuff. But he managed to slip it inside, and after fiddling for a moment he was able to pop open the cuff. He slipped it off his wrist and picked the other lock, shaking the cuffs into his lap and rubbing his wrists to let the blood circulate.

  They had given him a small map and two notes, one from Allan Pinkerton and another from Fiona. He memorized the map, which displayed the layout of the Old Arsenal, and then read and reread each of the notes. When he was done, he tore up all three documents, stuffing them slowly into his mouth and washing them down his throat with a gulp of dirty water from the basin he used for his hands. He pulled a blanket up to his mouth to muffle his gagging while he swallowed, and when he was done put the pick back into the capsule, dropped it into his boot, and snapped the handcuffs back onto his wrists.

  The next night, Temple would be leaving the Old Arsenal.

  PINKERTON, BEING PINKERTON, had made it his business to find out the rotation of the soldiers at the penitentiary. After eleven-thirty each night, the cellblock had one guard who replaced the four that patrolled it during the day. So, he wrote in his note to Temple, they would wait until after eleven-thirty the next night, when there wouldn’t be a moon, and Temple would have one hour to follow the instructions that Pinkerton had laid out for the escape. It could only be an hour, Pinkerton emphasized. Sharpshooters in the two towers atop the corners of the penitentiary’s ramparts would be likely to spot them the longer they lingered in the area.

  Throughout the next day, Temple wondered where he would actually end up at the end of the night and why Pinkerton had returned. At midday, the guards stirred the prisoners and let them sit outside their cells for half an hour. Temple and Mary Surratt were the only two of the nine without leg irons, and the guards let them walk in the courtyard outside the cellblock. The walls surrounding them had begun to bake in the sun, and the bricks had become almost too hot to touch. Mary stood in the shade by one of the storage rooms, staring at the ground and mumbling. Temple walked over to her to begin a conversation, but the guards waved him off.

  When Temple and Mary returned to the cellblock, the seven other conspirators were all back in their cells save for Lewis Powell, who sat above them on the second tier singing quietly. As they climbed the staircase, the guards had Temple wait on the second level while Mary was put back in her cell. Powell didn’t move as they walked by. He was large, with a thick neck and long, muscular arms, and his wrists and ankles were shackled in heavy irons. The laces on his canvas hood hung below his chin, and after Mary passed, he rolled his head to the left and spoke to Temple through the gap in the hood surrounding his mouth.

  “Mighty injustice that Lewis Powell is in here, don’t ya think?” he said to Temple in a thick Southern drawl. “I was a war hero, one of Mosby’s Rangers, for chrissake. Nobody minded our killin’ when we was shootin’ Union soldiers. But go and take a piece out of William Seward and they call it murder, conspiracy, and a crime against the state.”

  “It is a crime,” Temple said. “You deserve to be here.”

  “Aw now, don’t begin lecturing me. Y’all is here, too.”

  “So I am.”

  “That’s a sockdologer, ain’t it?” Powell said, chuckling.

  “Powell?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How’d you get involved in all of this?”

  “Johnny Surratt. We were both in the spy services for Dixie. Dave Parr introduced us in Baltimore, and then Johnny introduced me to Booth.”

  “Why isn’t John Surratt here?”

  “Well now, that’s a mystery, ain’t it?” Powell said, chuckling again. “His mama’s got rights to be perturbed. All she ever did was feed us at that shithole boardinghouse they owned. And Johnny’s out runnin’ around still. Wooey. But if I’m near that bitch the next time she starts her screamin’, I’m gonna snap her fuckin’ head off clean, got me?”

  “Got you,” Temple said as the guard came back and shoved him
up the stairwell to the third tier of cells.

  Late in the afternoon, Hartranft visited Temple’s cell in person to tell him that William Wood would be at the Old Arsenal the next day or the day after and that they intended to take Temple into the abandoned women’s cellblock for several hours of “persuasion.”

  “You should reconsider your obstinacy, Mr. McFadden, and give Wood whatever it is that he’s seeking,” Hartranft advised. “He intends to beat it out of you if you don’t.”

  “I’ll take your advice to heart,” said Temple. “I’ll do my best to avoid an unnecessary confrontation.”

  TEMPLE RETRIEVED THE PICK from his boot as soon as heard the soldiers rotating through guard duty at eleven-thirty and popped the handcuffs off his wrists. He massaged his arms, stretched his back, and then hobbled to the cell door to listen. It took several more minutes for the soldiers to trade places, and then he listened for the lone guard to begin his routine: a walk along the ground-level cells, then up to the second tier, and then to the cells on his level. After that, the guard would normally climb the stairs to the fourth level and sit there for most of the night because a series of windows ran in a line across the top of the opposing wall and they usually afforded a view of the moon. But tonight the sky was dark, and more than likely the guard would sit things out on the first level.

  When the guard reached the second tier, Temple began coughing and gagging loudly enough to be heard through his door. By the time the guard was on the third level, Temple was gagging in full force.

  “Dry heaves here, boss,” Temple said to the guard, sputtering as he did so. “I could use a latrine visit.”

  “No latrine visits after seven P.M., you know that,” the guard responded.

  “Understood, boss, but then I’m going to soil my cell if you leave me here and one of you is going to have to clean that up in the morning.”

  That logic appealed to the soldier, and he ordered Temple to step away from the door with his back to him.