The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  For now, Hooker’s Division was one of the most dangerous parts of the city; and for those in certain trades, one of the most profitable.

  They might have walked the few blocks from the office, but instead they rode together in Jonathan’s rig: one of the few occasions when Abigail had consented to have him drive her.

  “Are you certain that this is the right place?” he asked, only once.

  “The directions are from my brother, who is always certain.”

  Jonathan was worried about the carriage, so he left it with the porter at the Maryland House hotel, although, to be sure, the clientele looked only a few steps removed from the ruffians spilling from alleys and saloons. He had been here before, to meet Whit Pesky, but that had been daytime. He had never imagined that he might find himself in the heart of Hooker’s Division by night.

  “How do we find Silver Place?” he whispered.

  Abigail nodded toward the colored man tying the reins. “We ask.”

  “If we ask directions, they will know we are strangers.”

  She slipped her arm through his. “They will know that in any case.”

  Nevertheless, they did not ask. They walked. Hooker’s Division, according to the gleefully disapproving accounts in the newspapers, contained fifty saloons and a hundred brothels, all squeezed improbably into thirteen square blocks. Jonathan had always considered the tales absurd exaggerations; but now, as they made their way along the muddy walks, watching drunken louts tumble out of one door after another, he decided that the numbers might be accurate after all. There were neighborhoods of the teeming city where the same trades were carried on beneath a veneer of genteelness—the southern end of the Island, for example, and even a small knot of houses of ill repute not far from the Bannerman mansion—but Hooker’s Division was special.

  Michael had told his sister that Silver Place was off D Street, but D Street ran for six blocks through the heart of the Division, and each block seemed more shocking to the senses than the one before. The night air was frigid, but women in scanty attire leaned from windows and balconies, calling down to passersby. In the saloons, men shouted and cursed and fought. The smells were of cheap alcohol, and sickness, and human waste. Groups on street corners stared sullenly. A few called out lascivious remarks toward Abigail, but when Jonathan bristled she refused to let him turn, and hissed at him to keep walking. This part of Washington City was ruled by criminal gangs, most of them violent. Abigail pressed closer to Jonathan, who wished that he had taken Sickles’s advice to go armed in the city. Just now, Jonathan especially wished for a firearm, because they were being followed.

  Three toughs, maybe four, men who had made some of the more objectionable comments as Abigail passed, were trailing them at a distance of perhaps two dozen paces.

  “Keep walking,” whispered Abigail, who knew as well as Jonathan did what was happening.

  “Turn here,” he answered, tugging her into an alley between a saloon and a shuttered feed store. “And here,” he added, emerging on C Street and cutting back the other way.

  Yes. The men were definitely following them. No matter which alley Jonathan selected, no matter how many times he and Abigail circled the same apartment block, the boisterous gang made the same turnings, and even grew closer. There were more now, five or six, calling out increasingly lascivious comments, no doubt hoping to provoke a response.

  Jonathan said, “Stay in front of me.”

  Abigail looked at him. “That is hardly gentlemanly, to allow the lady to go first into danger.”

  “It’s the danger behind us that has me worried.”

  “Oh, that,” she said.

  Closer now. Jonathan, a bit stupidly, looked around for a policeman. And a way out: for he realized, far too late, that the last alley into which he had dragged Abigail, seeking escape, had no outlet.

  They were trapped.

  II

  The toughs stood in a semicircle, hooting and laughing. Jonathan and Abigail were backed against the wall of a saloon, but on this side were neither windows nor doors. The only choice was to stand and fight. Jonathan did not see how he could prevail, but he was determined to do his best.

  “Get behind me.”

  “I thought you wanted me to walk in front of you.”

  “No. Here. By the wall.”

  Abigail followed his glance toward the approaching gang. “Excellent suggestion,” she said, and stepped to the indicated spot.

  Jonathan looked around for a weapon, saw a discarded wooden board about a foot long. The men were close enough now to touch, and their hoots and calls were increasingly vulgar. He decided to make a quick grab for the makeshift weapon, but before he could, Abigail slipped her arms around him and drew him into a tight embrace.

  “Abigail—”

  “Shush,” she said.

  And pressed into him.

  They did not kiss. Not quite. But her face was rubbing against his neck, and her body was warm and springy in his arms. She squirmed deliciously as Jonathan hugged her tightly to him. He was confused and delighted, and for a lovely moment quite lost; then he heard the toughs laughing, and he understood.

  “I’m next,” one of them said.

  “How much for both of us?” said another.

  And then, like magic, the moment passed, and the gang moved on, seeking fresher prey than a whore.

  As soon as they vanished around the corner, Abigail straightened, cool and collected, entirely herself again. She was wearing a half-smile, and seemed, on the whole, unruffled.

  Jonathan trembled. “What,” he began. “What—”

  Abigail put a hand over his mouth. “I believe,” she said, turning away, “that they will now leave us alone.” She gestured in the direction the men had gone. “I believe that our little ruse persuaded them that I … that we … belong here.” Her half-smile made the words a joke, but the blush at the back of her neck told a different story.

  III

  After several more wrong turns, they found Silver Place, a snowy deadend path between a warehouse and a copse of barren trees, mostly hacked down for wood. There was no sign marking the entrance to the alley. Their only clue was a fading splash of silver paint on the brickwork. There was barely room for the two of them to pass side by side. To imagine the horse plow ever discovering this dying alley was impossible. At the end of the road—if indeed it was a road—they found the rear entrances to a pair of tenement buildings. There was garbage all over the snow, because people threw it out of their windows. The buildings were wood, and four stories tall. Neither looked likely to survive a stiff wind, or a spilled candle flame. A door swung open, and two very large and very drunken colored men reeled out. Jonathan instinctively stepped in front of Abigail, and this time she let him. The men ignored them. When they were alone again, Jonathan tugged at the door, but it was bolted from within. Abigail tried the other building, and the creaking door, in its hasty compliance, nearly fell off its hinges.

  Inside were mountainous shadows, and the babble of angry, hopeless humanity, and the smells of hot grease and a thousand cats.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” asked Jonathan.

  “No,” she said.

  “Do you want to turn back?”

  “No.”

  They were in a hallway. A faint flicker of light told them that a lamp was somewhere around a corner up ahead, and they made their way through the darkness, Jonathan leading, Abigail clutching his arm. Twice she stumbled, but she never lost her grip. Once, a door snapped open, and a colored girl stared at them. She was about ten, with her hair disheveled and her dress badly stained. She was breathing very hard. Her eyes were dark and devoid of hope, and for an awful moment Abigail was inside the girl’s head, staring out uncomprehendingly on a world that made no place for her. She shared the girl’s desperation to escape whatever else was in the flat, and, but for Jonathan pulling her along, would have knelt and taken the child into her arms.

  The door slammed.


  “I can’t do this,” Abigail said, suddenly envying Dinah, whose giant bodyguard, Corporal Waverly, followed her everywhere.

  “It was your idea.”

  “Now and then I am mistaken.”

  Jonathan smiled. “I do not believe that I have ever heard those words pass your lips.”

  They had reached a small lobby, with tiny tiles on the floor. A heavy door led outside, and a sagging stair led upward.

  “Third floor,” said Abigail, her heart back with the frightened little girl.

  “The stairway is unlighted.”

  “You may remain here and wait for me if you wish.”

  They climbed the stairs and, not without adventures, reached the third floor. There were four doors, one with an 8 painted beside it, one with a metallic 4 hanging from a nail, the other two unmarked. They heard a baby crying, but could not tell where. The air was still and cloying.

  “Which one?” Jonathan whispered.

  Abigail shook her head, picked the first unmarked one, knocked. No answer. She tried the next. They heard movement, and the oldest man in the world opened the door, grinning crazily, hands scratching his chest through his ancient robe. “Well, look who’s here!” he cried as if he knew them, which he did not.

  “Please excuse us, sir,” said Jonathan. “Wrong door.”

  “It’s my door.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  The old man laughed as they moved on.

  “Try another,” said Jonathan, unnecessarily.

  Abigail rapped on number 8, and the crying grew louder. A mother’s voice shouted, and the door opened a tiny crack. A woman’s angry voice said, “What?”

  Then the door opened the rest of the way, very fast. The woman who stood there was haggard and red-eyed, wearing a dressing gown and holding a puling infant against her shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?” Judith demanded, no less angry than before.

  IV

  Jonathan waited in the fetid hall. Abigail, studying the single room, could not comprehend her sister’s circumstances. There was a worn-out divan that might also serve as a worn-out bed, and a storage closet that held food and clothing alike. One aging table, one dying chair. There was no plumbing. There was no place to prepare meals.

  There was, however, the baby, tiny and brown and squalling.

  “You’re my sister,” Abigail said.

  “And that’s why you’re here, is it? To see how your sister is doing? Just fine, thank you.” She was perched on the bed, holding the child distractedly. Abigail remained standing. “Lydia and I are both fine.” Judith laid the baby atop the bedspread, conjured a biscuit from somewhere. “You may leave now.”

  “Wait—”

  “I don’t want you here, Abby. This is my world, not yours. I am living life as I choose. Not for Nanny. Not for Mother. For me. And you—you’re training to be a lawyer, visiting all the best salons, carrying secret messages for Presidents. Good for you.” A laugh, sour as curdled cream. “And running around at night with rich white men. Let’s not forget that part.”

  Abigail stiffened. “I see that Michael keeps you fully informed.”

  “I am glad that you see. Please leave.”

  “I just need—”

  “You need to get out of here, Abby. How much plainer can I make it? I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “But I don’t understand,” cried Abigail. “How did this happen?”

  “How did what happen, dear?”

  “This!” Pointing in exasperation. “And the child!”

  “It’s not all that difficult,” said Judith, languidly. “Having a baby. Anybody can do it.” A twitter. “All you need is a willing man, a fertile womb, and a bit of carelessness.”

  “Yes, but—but you’re not married!”

  Judith smoothed the robe over her legs. “The equipment works just the same whether a girl is married or not.”

  Abigail turned toward the child, who sat on the blanket, sucking tearfully on the biscuit. Her niece. Huge eyes, aware of everything. Lydia. A lovely name, she decided.

  “And don’t you be asking me who the father is,” Judith scolded.

  “I won’t.” But she wondered whether her sister even knew.

  “Abby. Look at me.”

  And so she did. Judith was sitting on the divan, looking exhausted and twenty years older than her age. She should have been married to a young man of their set. She should have had a brick house with a maid and three or four children. How exactly Judith had missed the life Abigail expected for herself, her younger sister could not figure out. There had been an arc of life to which all three girls had been raised, first by their mother, then by Nanny Pork. Abigail and Louisa were more or less following the curve, but Judith had gone off on a tangent, the line of her life straight and true, the most rapid distance from the expectations of her family. Something had gone wrong, Abigail told herself, wishing there were a way to repair the damage. It never occurred to her that her sister might have left the path by choice.

  “Why are you still here?” said Judith, her voice as exhausted as her posture. She folded her arms on the edge of the settee, laid her head down. “What do you want? And don’t pretend you are here out of a concern for my welfare.”

  “I do care about your welfare.”

  “Until I interrupted your bath, you had not laid eyes on me in more than two years. And you hadn’t come looking, either.” She squirmed angrily, as if her body could find no comfort. “No more fairy tales, Abby. Tell me what you want.”

  A long breath. “I want to know more about Rebecca Deveaux.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “Do you mind talking about her?”

  A derisive squawk. “Do you care if I mind? I can’t get rid of you, can I?”

  “Not really,” said Abigail, gently. She moved to the divan, sat, and took her sister’s feet on her lap. The baby had sprawled, snoring, on the blanket. “Anything you can remember.”

  “Why is it so important?”

  “I am not sure. But she is the key somehow. I do not believe that Mr. McShane was necessarily even the target of the murder. I believe Rebecca was.”

  Judith snorted. “Impossible.”

  “They found an envelope with the bodies. Addressed to Senator Wade.” She began rubbing her sister’s feet, trying to drive the tension away, even though she herself was the cause. “You told me that Rebecca was giving information to Mr. McShane. It seems obvious that she planned to give him the contents of the envelope. No doubt she delivered other documents as well. Mr. McShane withdrew fifty dollars from the bank the day of the murders. I believe the money was to pay Rebecca for the documents, not her services. A sum that large means that she was taking a significant risk. I suspect that the documents were stolen. She must have met Mr. McShane outside brothels to provide the obvious explanation if anyone ever saw them together. What I don’t know is where Rebecca was stealing the documents from.”

  “How would I know?”

  “She might have told you.”

  “She didn’t.” A yawn. “Sorry.”

  “She was your friend,” Abigail persisted. “That’s what you said, Judith. Not just an acquaintance. A friend. She may not have told you where she was getting the documents, but I am sure she supplied some clues, whether she intended to or not. If you tell me what you know about Rebecca, perhaps I can figure it out. And then, by re-establishing the conduit, I can honor her memory.”

  “So that’s why you’re here? To honor Rebecca?”

  “No. No. I’m here because somebody gave her my name. Her name and mine are in the register at the Metzerott Hotel. In the same handwriting, Judith. I asked myself why anybody would do that. It doesn’t make any sense. There is no reason to hide behind my name when she could meet with anybody in the city, anywhere in the city, and not need any name at all. That means, if Rebecca used my name, it was because she wanted someone to find it. She was leaving a clue behind. I think she wanted me to hear a
bout it if anything happened to her. I think she was trying to lead me to you. Now I’d like to know why.”

  For a moment Abigail thought she had lost. Judith let her eyelids drift shut, yawned again, said nothing. Abigail had the sense that she had offended her sister somehow, had pressed too hard, or guessed too much. She prepared herself for the possibility that Judith would throw her out. Abigail kept massaging. She glanced at the baby, who was still asleep on the blanket. The candles were flickering; the apartment was growing dimmer, and more drafty. Judith gave a sudden snore. Abigail began to compose in her mind an appropriate apology. But in the end, her sister gave her the story, and Abigail knew it to be a parting gift.

  V

  “Rebecca was born on a tobacco plantation in northern Virginia. When the war broke out, the land up that way was pretty well trampled, and a lot of the slaves ran off. Rebecca lost track of her parents. She made her way to Washington somehow, and got work as a domestic. She’d worked in the house instead of the fields on the plantation, so she had the training. She worked her way up to one of the great houses, then moved on to another. I am not sure exactly why she left the first one. She was about twelve or thirteen, so …”

  Judith’s voice trailed off, and her long face took on a pinched look, as if she were battling pain. There was no need to exchange any words. The availability of young colored women for the pleasure of their masters had survived, fully intact, the demise of the slave system that had given it birth.

  “She must have worked in four or five houses. She was working in one of them when she … when she died.” Judith looked oddly abashed. “I met her a year and a half ago. We met … well, through church. I started … when I found out I was pregnant.… I thought it would be better for the baby if … Never mind.” Locking treacherous thoughts away. “Well. Rebecca and I met at George Town AME. We got to be friends. She’s about your age. A year or two younger, I guess. Or she was. And I … well … we talked about things. She told me her story. I told her my story. We didn’t pry. We just talked. And she told me about the house where she worked, how the master never touched her or even looked at her. That’s what she still said. Master.”