Some Hidden Thunder

by Jeffrey Marks

  On the ride here, Grant and Hart had discussed his explanation for calling. Mitchell would take the visit as a show of respect for an important businessman in an election year. The major wouldn’t take kindly to learn that they’d come to question the serving girl instead. Grant had to be circumspect in the introduction, as he didn’t want to offend a potential campaign donor unnecessarily.

  The pair’s deliberations had come to no conclusions. All Hart’s suggestions involved coming right to the point. While that technique might work in journalism, it was the anathema of politicians and the military. Grant had about decided on an amalgam of lies and truth when they arrived. Hart’s role would be minimal, he just had to record what the girl said when they had a chance to talk to her.

  “Well, sir. I’m here on something of a mission.”

  The major’s eyes lit up. Everyone loves a secret, especially one that he shouldn’t be privy to.

  The major opened the door wide and motioned them inside. He was most likely not used to performing his own hosting duties. “Please come in. I have forgotten my manners entirely.”

  Grant followed Mitchell inside with Hart trailing behind. The men passed through a long hallway flanked by a parlor on the right and a dining room on the left. Mitchell led them to a room in the back of the house that resembled an office with oversized desk standing in the middle of the room. It was covered with papers and maps, a small quill pen resting on the blotter.

  Mitchell indicated a pair of chairs in front of the desk. “So, you indicated a mission? How can I be of service to you?”

  “Well, sir. As I indicated, I’m on something of a mission here in Ohio. I believe that when I return to Washington, I’m going to work on the racial unrest problems in the South. I’m sure that you’ve heard of the violence in the South.”

  To this point, the story that Grant was telling was true, Andy Johnson wanted the problems with the South to go away. That meant stories about the violence had to cease, even if the violence continued unabated.

  Mitchell nodded. He sat with his elbows on his knees, rapt with attention to the fable Grant was spinning. “I’m aware of what’s going on down there.”

  “The Radical Republicans will have none of that. They’ve discussed a full-scale military occupation, but I don’t believe that’s the answer for our times. I think that if a few key people were subdued, the problem would die down.”

  “Like General Forrest?” Mitchell stroked his thick mustache and matched Grant’s gaze across the room.

  “He is not the only one, just the best known.” Hart spoke for the first time, and Grant hoped the reporter wouldn’t confound their plan. The ploy seemed to be working so far.

  “This is all very fascinating,” Mitchell said, “but I fail to see how I play a part in this matter. I never was far enough south to run into Forrest and his ilk. I served mostly in Kentucky and Missouri.”

  Grant nodded. Mitchell had named places that were well out of harm’s way; the major’s days had been spent waiting for attacks that had never arrived. “Well, one of the things I’ve been doing is interviewing blacks from the deeper South to talk to them about the conditions there. I was told that one of your servants here fits that description.”

  Mitchell frowned. “Caroline? I suppose she does. She’s my wife’s maid.”

  Grant waited, but there was no movement on Mitchell’s part. Either he didn’t want to end the interview, or he was anxious to keep Grant from talking to the staff.

  Finally, Grant asked, “Might we talk to her?”

  Mitchell stood up. “Certainly. Please follow me.”

  He led the two men up the stairs to the second-floor landing. The dark wood railings shone with polish, and the stairs looked like feet had never touched them. These were obviously the family living quarters. Grant counted at least four bedrooms here, including a spacious one with a turret and a view of the street. Grant saw no signs of Mrs. Mitchell, even though her husband continued to speak of her.

  Mitchell opened a few doors, but Grant saw no one. He remembered walking through the Belmont and what he’d found there. He didn’t know what to expect in this situation.

  “She’s not here. Let’s try upstairs and see if she’s in her room. Perhaps she’s resting. We allow the staff to work when they like, so long as all the work gets done—especially the maids. Obviously the cooks are on a more rigorous schedule.”

  They mounted the stairs to the top level of the Mitchell home. Here the railings were rougher, scuffed and dented in several places, and the staircase was narrower and steeper. As they reached the third-floor landing, Mitchell stepped forward and knocked on the first door to the left.

  “Caroline? Are you there?” Mitchell tried the door. The knob turned but the door stood firm. “Caroline?”

  He put a shoulder to the door, but the wood didn’t budge under the assault.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, General. The servants keep their doors unlocked in case of fires or problems. Caroline’s always been very good about that in the past.”

  He dropped to his knees and spied through the keyhole, much to Grant’s surprise. He doubted that even Hart would stoop to something as blatantly nosy as that.

  The major stood back up and brushed off his uniform. “This doesn’t look good. Caroline is on the floor, and she’s not moving.”

  Hart bent over and looked through the hole as well, and Grant chided himself for thinking too much of the reporter. There was a news story here.

  “I think I see blood. Do you have any idea what’s blocking the door? It’s not a chair or table. I have a clear line of vision here,” Hart said.

  “None whatsoever. Let me try again.” Mitchell moved into place to try a second assault on the door. Hart, with his small frame, took a place beside him to help.

  The two men hit the door at the same time, and the wood protested before giving way. They nearly fell into the room, but stopped short as soon as they saw the body on the floor.

  Hart had been right; a pool of blood encircled the girl. Caroline sat on the floor, head tilted back, arms spread wide, palms facing up. Both wrists split open.

  Grant stepped forward to take a closer look and was surprised at the position of the body. He’d only seen a few people take their own life out of all the thousands he’d seen killed in the past four years. Yet, each of them had taken a more comfortable position to wait for death.

  Grant started looking around the sparsely furnished room. There was a bed in the corner with a tattered quilt and a chest of drawers on the opposite wall. He stepped to the door, ignoring the body for a minute. The door was still in one piece, despite the assault. The lock had no key in it, and there was none on the ground. That made sense since Hart and Mitchell had both spied through the hole. Grant ran a hand around the frame, looking for the locking mechanism. There was a gouge in frame at about eye level for him. Call it five and a half feet from the ground.

  He caught a glimpse of a wood stick on the ground and bent over to pick it up. It was a knitting needle, or so he assumed from its long thin body and rounded head. The point had been snapped off, and now only the tip was jagged. One side of the needle was caked with blood. Grant slid the needle into the doorframe, and it fit the gouged area perfectly.

  The girl must not have wanted to be disturbed as she took her life. Had she heard that Jericho was missing and presumed dead and couldn’t live on? Both Grant and Hart had heard the rumors about Jericho, but they’d heard nothing definite. Was that enough to make the girl lose her will to live and take a poor innocent baby with her?

  Grant loved Julia more preciously than he loved life, but he didn’t know that he’d off himself in this manner. It was selfish and a sin. Besides, the Grants had four children to rear, whereas Caroline had been alone.

  He walked back over to the maid’s body. Hart had sat down on the edge of the bed, and he looked pasty, as though he could have the vapors himself. Grant looked to the major, but he seemed to be bearing up
well. Grant tended to forget that most people hadn’t seen the carnage he had in his life. He was inured to seeing the vessels of once healthy young men and women; at least this one wouldn’t be left to the elements.

  Grant cleared his throat. “Major, would you kindly send someone for the police? I would like them to see this before things are moved.”

  Mitchell’s eyes widened. “Sir, I don’t think that the police will attend for a colored serving girl.”

  Grant fixed his eyes on the man. He’d forgotten the girl’s lowly status in life; he’d only seen a soul in pain. “No, but they will for me.”

  The major strode from the room, and Grant wondered if his tone would cost the major’s support in the future. Foundries made millions in this town. Mitchell hadn’t seemed pleased at the to-do brewing in his house.

  Hart bent over at the waist and put his head between his legs. Grant wryly thought that he’d have to move his tail to fit anything else there at the moment. When the reporter looked up again, he had a blaze in his eyes. “General, did you see that stick on the floor?”

  Grant held up the broken knitting needle and showed it to the reporter. “This is what was jamming the door. Someone, presumably Caroline, pushed it into the doorframe so as not to be disturbed.”

  Hart reached out and pulled a second stick from under the woman’s leg. It was still intact, long, thin, and covered with blood. He pointed to another bloodstain, this one on the woman’s dress between her outspread legs. “I think we might have uncovered a motive for this crime.”

  Chapter 9

  “Well, at least this isn’t murder,” Grant said with more confidence than he felt. There were details that bothered him, but he didn’t want to share them with Hart. The man would be penning a news story for the next edition of the Gazette if he did.

  “Isn’t it?” Hart seemed to have recovered somewhat.

  “Look at this room. The door was jammed shut with a broken knitting needle. It’s on the third floor of a residence.” The room overlooked the side of the house where dirt paths led to the shaded backyard. Grant saw a sheer drop to the packed earth below.

  “Only one way in or out of the room. The door. Even if someone might scale three stories of a home, the neighbors would likely notice.” Hart’s eyes sparkled for a moment. “You know how nosy people can be.”

  “Indeed,” Grant assented without a hint of irony.

  “Well, on the surface, it looks fairly straightforward. Caroline learns that she’s in the family way. She’s been courting Jericho Granby, who’s disappeared and presumed dead. She’s due to lose her job as soon as the Mitchells find out that she’s expecting. So she kills the baby, and then she kills herself out of remorse at what she did.” Hart walked around the room.

  “On the surface?”

  “Yes, on the surface. So often, General, things are not what they seem.”

  Grant knew that only too well. He remembered the Western campaigns where Halleck had told Grant a completely plausible story, and told another less flattering version to Washington. Grant had no use for hypocrisy and lies, and he’d even tried to resign over the matter, but Lincoln had needed him for a greater purpose.

  “Surely you’ve noticed a few things out of kilter for the scene?” Hart picked up something off the floor by the doorway. He studied the scrap while the question waited in the air.

  “I’ve noticed several things, but the woman’s death is a matter for the police, not for a reporter… and certainly not for me.” Grant didn’t want another crime-solving escapade with Hart. The man had a way of getting them into trouble.

  “The police aren’t going to do anything about this. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

  Grant eyed the reporter suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a laxity around investigations involving the blacks in this town. The police are quick to arrest them if one has committed a crime but slow to investigate a crime where they’re the victims. I’ve picked up a number of instances of that pattern in the weeks I’ve been here.” Hart looked like he wanted Grant to do something about the matter. He was a man of action, but solving the racial problems of the country would take time and more authority than Grant had now. Still, he was shocked by the reaction of the North to the migration of the former slaves to their cities. These same people had pushed for abolition and war, but now they wanted nothing to do with these unintended spoils of war.

  “So the police will do nothing?”

  “Well, not precisely. I would guess that at your request, they’d make a report of the crime. It might even make the papers, but only a paragraph— if that. I doubt that they’d want to embarrass Major Mitchell by announcing a maid’s suicide in his home. That will be the end of it.”

  Grant hated the notion, but he knew it to be true. The police had an easy solution and no reason to continue an investigation beyond that, especially when the girl was a former slave who’d apparently killed her child and then herself. She was just a poor black woman dead in the dirty upstairs room of a rich man’s mansion. There was no excitement in a story like that.

  “Even if they find evidence of foul play?

  “Like what?” Hart asked. “Just between old friends, of course. Nothing quoted for the Gazette.” Hart stood up and began pacing the room. Grant knew that his posturing was a ruse. Hart was looking at the floor as he paced, staring down in hopes that he’d find something helpful.

  Considering that Grant had only met Hart in Georgetown a few weeks prior, he thought the “old friends” claim a little exaggerated, but he might as well pass the time while they waited for Mitchell and a policeman. “There’s bruising on her face and a lump on her forehead,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, I noticed that,” Hart agreed. “But who’s to say when that happened? Granby could have done that before he disappeared. Maybe he wasn’t happy to learn of his impending fatherhood.”

  Grant squinted at the reporter. “Or she could have tried to fight whoever did this to her. Knocked her out and then killed her.”

  “General, you have the makings of a reporter yet.” Hart smiled at him. “What else did you notice?”

  Hart must have worked up his nerve. He pulled open a drawer in the dresser and scanned the contents. It did take gumption to root through the belongings of a poor soul when she sat there in front of you, dead as a nail. Grant could see from his perspective that the drawer only held a few garments and nothing else. Hart repeated the maneuver with the remaining drawers but didn’t take anything out of them.

  “The position of the body. It looks almost Madonnaesque. I haven’t seen many bodies set out so perfectly,” Grant observed.

  “I noticed that as well. It’s rather artfully posed. It makes one believe that the killer loved or revered the woman. If Jericho Granby wasn’t dead, he’d be a prime suspect now.”

  Grant kept an eye on Hart’s hand, where he held the item from the floor. “Are you going to tell me what you found there?” He pointed at the balled fist with its prize.

  “Just a piece of paper. Looks like a story from the newspaper or something. It’s been folded over and over until it’s just a small square.”

  “What part of the newspaper? One of your articles perhaps?” Grant tried a bit of flattery to get the man to open up. The reporter was keeping this scrap of paper close to his chest.

  “No, it appears to be an article on the Fifth Street Market here and its resurgence since the end of the war. Not exactly a promising a clue.” Hart finally handed it to Grant so he could examine it.

  The scrap was relatively new, certainly out of the paper in the last month, no earlier. There was a stain on it, paraffin, oil, or something that left a residue on Grant’s thumb as he held it.

  The article was a recounting of how the Fifth Street Market had prevailed despite its use as a political forum, polling place, and mustering point during the war. The article reminded Grant that Lincoln and Douglas had debated at the market before the war. He felt a pa
ng of guilt, thinking back to the assassination and how he’d bowed out of attending the performance. Grant turned the paper over and found half of a photo of a man he knew. Only the eye, cheek, and hair remained of the portrait, but the wild thatch of hair made the identification easy—Dr. Seth Trubel.

  “Did you see this?” Grant held the newspaper photo out to Hart. “It’s Dr. Trubel. We met him the other night at the reception.”

  Hart swallowed hard, and Grant’s eyes narrowed. Hart had been trying to keep that piece of information from him. He thought back to the reception, where Trubel had brought a young woman of color to the event, showing her off like an exhibit, a scientific experiment of what training could do for the African race. Grant had just assumed that Trubel wanted educational funds for his theory. His face suddenly darted back to the dead woman on the floor.

  It was the same woman, Caroline Washington. That recognition was what had intrigued Hart so much, and what made the reporter think that it was murder rather than suicide. The woman had been sleek and self-assured then. It was impossible to imagine her as the bloodied corpse on the floor. It was just as impossible to think it coincidence that one of the few residents he met had come to a deadly end. Tied to the ghost and Jericho’s disappearance, suicide was not the most plausible explanation after all.

  “I see that you’ve worked a few things out for yourself, General.”

  Before Grant could open his mouth, Mitchell and Ruffin appeared in the doorway. Ruffin offered his hand to Grant and nodded in Hart’s direction. “So you found this woman here like this?”

  Ruffin pulled out a cheroot and cut off the end with the penknife that had appeared at the same time as the tobacco. “I’ll give you this much. She is dead.” He put the cheroot in his mouth and lit it, drawing in until the end burned a bright red and tendrils of smoke curled around his head.

  “Sheriff, please don’t smoke in here. My wife doesn’t allow smoking in the home. It gives her migraines when men do.”