Some Hidden Thunder

by Jeffrey Marks

  Grant stopped to wonder. He hadn’t stopped to consider Trubel’s story until now. Yes, men of color possessed raw talent and artistic ability. He’d seen their works and read a couple of poems by them. What if Caroline had not been one of them? What if, despite Trubel’s best efforts, she hadn’t been able to read or write? What if she’d not proved to be what he’d expected? Grant knew that the man cared for her, but did he care for his career more? With her gone, he could make whatever claims he wanted about the woman without contradiction. His work would otherwise be for naught.

  “When did you expect to release your work?” Grant asked, with more casualness than he felt.

  “Next year perhaps. I wanted to make sure that her writing skills were a bit more polished before I announced my findings.”

  Grant nodded. He was about to ask another question when Hart tapped on his shoulder. “Excuse me, General, but some of the members of the press wanted to ask you a few questions. I thought we could step back into the hall for a minute so that we wouldn’t disturb the guests.” Hart looked annoyed, perhaps that he had to share his access to the presumptive next president. He’d have to work harder now to make a name for himself in Cincinnati journalism.

  Julia smiled. “I’ll be fine here with Father, Ulys. You run along.”

  Grant reluctantly followed Hart to doors that separated the performance hall from the foyer. Two other men stood there, poised with pencils and notepads. They reminded Grant of the violinists he’d just seen with bows ready to start.

  Suddenly it seemed as if Hart were part of a regiment of reporters. Grant really had hoped to slip through tonight’s appearance without speaking with the newspapers. While he tried not to hold a grudge, it was hard not to after what the Cincinnati papers had said about him—a failure, a drunk. They’d encouraged Halleck to fire him, even after he gave them Fort Donelson.

  Grant hated to talk about himself. Let his actions speak, and his mouth be silent. That had been his motto throughout the conflict, and his mother’s before that. People had published what they would, but he’d shown them results. Of course, his father had peppered the newspapers in Cincinnati with stories of Grant’s exploits, but there was a small humiliation in the unbridled bragging of his father.

  One of the reporters fired off a question before they’d even opened the doors to the theater. Hart looked displeased and stood next to Grant instead of facing him like the other members of the press. Grant answered in one or two-word answers when possible, wishing that someone would rescue him from this interrogation.

  A shout that seemed to last forever came from behind the doors, followed by a crash. Both noises made the reporters jump, but Grant was more frightened by the deadly silence that followed. Hart pushed through the group and opened the doors to the hall. Grant followed him and stopped short.

  There on the floor lie Jericho Granby, head cocked and body twisted in a way that no living man could be.

  Grant heard Hart’s voice from in front of him. “It looks as though Jericho has fallen.”

  Chapter 17

  Grant and Hart were pushed away from the body in the ensuing commotion. Sheriff Ruffin, who’d also attended the concert, managed to push his way through the crowd and shut the doors to the performance hall. With the chatter and clink of glasses, many of the partygoers hadn’t even noticed that a man had been killed. Grant presumed it had been this way throughout most of the war. Money served as the best insulation known to man.

  The reporters, who’d been poised just outside the doors, had already seen enough to compose their stories, and Ruffin didn’t have to encourage them to leave the scene of the crime. They were off to polish their prose for the morning edition. Grant was surprised to see that Hart had remained. He’d expected the man to want to leave with the others, but he stood next to Grant as the sheriff talked to a few of the servers.

  Ruffin approached Grant and nodded. “Sir, you’ve certainly seen more than your share of death this trip. I do apologize for that.”

  Grant thought of the thousands of men in his command who’d died on the battlefields in Northern Virginia. Three souls, dear as they might be to the Lord, were not something that would make him lose sleep. He couldn’t be responsible for the deaths of others.

  Ruffin eyed Hart with disdain. The sheriff wanted the reporter to leave, but Grant said nothing and Hart stood fast. Finally, the sheriff spoke. “To be honest, I don’t know what to tell you about this death. Granby had no business being here tonight. I talked to a few of the servers. A man from Bucktown, working in the mills, wasn’t likely to work here for a reception. The people in charge had requested some of the servants from the nicer homes in town for tonight. They wanted men who could write drink orders. From the sound of it, Granby wouldn’t have fit those criteria. Poor man probably never cracked a book in his life.”

  “What will become of him? Will there be an investigation?” Hart’s color had started to come back and his eyes flashed. Grant knew that he smelled a much bigger story here. They both knew that the death was no accident.

  Ruffin laughed, but Grant hoped that it was of the ironic variety. “Not likely. Frankly, we’ve been looking for Granby since his girl passed on with no luck at all. I wouldn’t exactly want people to hear that one of the Bucktown crowd bamboozled the sheriff. It wouldn’t make for good headlines if you know what I mean.”

  “So nothing will be done?” Hart’s voice had a shrill edge to it.

  Grant thought that perhaps the man needed a drink to calm his nerves. He looked around, but the waiters cut a wide path around the doors to the performance hall. Grant wondered if they knew what had happened. Maybe they were superstitious about the deaths of three former slaves in a matter of weeks. Combined with the beating death of that black soldier from Covington, the city looked poised for another clash between the races.

  Ruffin looked around to see if Hart’s voice had attracted attention. He seemed uncomfortable in talking to Grant about the investigation. Grant was angry to think that so much blood had been spilled during the war for so little progress in the North. “There will be an investigation, sir, but we really don’t expect to uncover much. How can we? Israel Granby, his son, and his son’s woman are all dead. What clues would you suggest we investigate now?”

  Hart flipped the pages of his notebook. “Perhaps what Israel Granby was doing talking to Caroline at the Fifth Street Market just before his death? He was seen passing papers to her. Also, you might consider paying visits to the two Granby widows. They might know something of interest. Then of course, you have Dr. Trubel and his research. Caroline played a large part in his experiments to make a lady out of an African. There might be elements in the city who would not appreciate his work going forward.” He stopped and waited.

  “What’s this about passing papers? Who told you this?” Ruffin’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the reporter.

  Grant wondered what Hart would say now. They should have been reporting anything they found to the police, but at the same time, the police seemed so disinterested in the matter that it felt like a waste of time. No one wanted to share information with a sheriff who rejected his suppositions out-of-hand.

  “We just learned this evening,” Hart lied. “We found out that a few witnesses saw Israel Granby and Caroline together at the Fifth Street Market just before Granby’s disappearance. We were going to share this with you tomorrow.”

  “Indeed, and what were these papers?” Ruffin at least looked interested now. Although Israel Granby and the servant girl had always been linked through his son, Jericho, Grant and Hart had found a direct connection between the two. If the two had been sharing papers and a secret of some sort, perhaps that was the reason for their deaths.

  “We don’t know. As I said, we just found out about the meeting this evening. We haven’t had a chance to look into it further.” Hart looked more comfortable now with his lies. Grant might have actually believed him if he hadn’t heard the discussion in Bucktown.

/>   “We found a newspaper article in Caroline’s room though. Perhaps that was the paper our witness saw.” Grant saw no reason to hold back information from the sheriff now. He should know everything so he could best find the killer.

  “Just an article?” Ruffin’s face scrunched up like he’d ate something bad.

  Hart shot a look at Grant and took over the conversation. “Yes, on one side was an article about the Fifth Street Market, and on the other was part of a photograph of Dr. Trubel.”

  “Hmm, that picture might be something, but I doubt it was the article. I hate to point it out to you, but it’s been illegal for almost forty years for them folks to read or write. Ever since the Nat Turner rebellion down South.”

  Ruffin was referring to the slave revolt that had scared the South into realizing that precious little kept millions of blacks under their control. The result had been to keep them unschooled and out of church. The idea was to keep them away from groups and from talking to each other. Even so, some of the slaves had managed to learn to read, like the Granbys and Caroline. They were the exception though. Grant knew that was one more reason people sought to keep these men from voting. If they couldn’t read the newspapers or the ballots, how could they know whom to vote for?

  Hart smiled. “She could read just fine. Dr. Trubel’s been working with her for the past six months. She could read and write just as well as you or I.”

  “I was going to say that more’n likely she just used that scrap of paper to wipe off her windows or even out a table. Not much there to suggest her death was anything more than a fallen woman with no way out.”

  “And Israel Granby and his son?”

  “Two unfortunate accidents. They say that bad things come in threes, so perhaps this is the ending of the deaths in that family. It sure does hurt the family to suffer this way.” Ruffin patted a pocket and pulled out a tobacco pouch.

  “Would you like a cigar, Mr. Ruffin?” Grant pulled a thick cheroot from Cuba, sent to him by a Union loyalist from Boston.

  Ruffin shook his head. “No thanks. I like my tobacco in smaller doses. I’d offer you a cigarette, General, but I’m out of papers right now. Why don’t you just enjoy the party? I can assure you that we’re doing all we can to solve these crimes.”

  Hart’s eyes flashed for a minute, and then he nodded. “Perhaps you’re right, Sheriff. We might have been wasting our time in pursuing this matter.” He turned and started to walk away.

  Grant said his quick good-byes to Ruffin and followed Hart.

  The reporter stopped a few yards away and turned to Grant. “He said something that started my mind thinking about something. Actually two somethings, but one is more imperative than the other. What do most people use papers for?”

  Grant shrugged, not sure what the reporter wanted from his question. “Reading and writing.”

  “And if you don’t write, what do you use paper for?”

  Hart took a match and struck it on the heel of his shoe. The red tip of the wooden stick danced for a second before settling in to a quiet burn. He didn’t move to light Grant’s cigar, which he chomped on impatiently. What good was wasting a match?

  “Fire?” Grant asked. “Why would you burn something that might be important?” It was inconceivable that the man who routinely read books rather than enjoying the outdoors was advocating burning papers.

  “Two reasons,” Hart said. “First, it’s so cold that you need to burn something, nay anything to stay alive. Paper can start a fire instead of kindling. Fortunately, cold nights are not an everyday event in September, or we’d be sadly out of luck at this juncture.”

  “And the second reason?” Grant looked around, but the news of the black man’s death had only momentarily interrupted the revelers. They talked and laughed, as if death hadn’t struck in their midst. He was appalled to see how little the death of a man who wasn’t “one of them” mattered to the elite.

  “It’s even worse than the first. What if you don’t know there’s anything on the paper?”

  “I don’t understand. How can you not see it? You mean it’s invisible? You’ve been seeing too much of Madame Blanche and her chicanery. You can always see writing on paper.”

  “It’s only invisible if you can’t read it. I’m talking about someone who’s illiterate. What if those papers that Granby gave Caroline were something important, but the person who took them couldn’t read what was written? They’d be worthless and only fit for burning or trash.”

  “What makes you think that it’s a lot of paper?” Grant asked.

  The noise of the partiers was threatening to give him a migraine, the last thing he needed right now. “I thought Granby might have given the girl that piece from the newspaper.”

  Hart ripped a sheet out of his notepad, the first time that Grant had ever seen him part with a piece of his journalistic prowess. “Do you think that you could see this from twenty feet away?”

  “No, but—”

  “The first Mrs. Granby had to be some distance away from her husband, else he and Caroline would have spied her watching them. Therefore, it was probably twenty feet away or more. That one has a sharp eye; she saw us coming, remember?”

  “Yes, and I couldn’t really see that paper from a distance. So your thought is that if she saw paper, then it had to be larger sheets and more than likely, a right large amount of it too.”

  “Exactly. Then I got to thinking about where a wad of paper might end up in this town. If you wanted to destroy it, you’d burn it. However, people use paper sometimes instead of kindling to get a fire burning. The sheriff’s cigarette papers got me to thinking.”

  “So why are we in such a blamed hurry for?” Grant looked around for Julia. She’d be mightily angry if he went tearing off with Hart while there were still guests to meet and greet. She loved the spotlight and couldn’t much ken why he didn’t.

  “Well, sir. It’s been warmer the past two nights, mostly in the mid-sixties or so. But tonight it’s supposed to turn cold. They’re suggesting that it could drop down into the forties tonight, nearing the frost range.”

  “So you think that it could be burned tonight?”

  “Indeed. I went outside a few minutes ago, and there’s a chill in the air. I wouldn’t want to waste much more time to fetch the papers.”

  Grant sighed, but knew the reporter was right. They didn’t have much time to spare if they wanted to get to the papers before the nightly fires were lit and burning bright. He sought out Julia with his eyes, trying to locate her so he could tell her he had to leave for a few minutes. He spied her talking to the Bishops again. He willed himself to walk over to the group, not wanting to disclose his urgency in the matter.

  “Why, General Grant, I’ve been looking for you,” Julia called out to him. She always used his title when there were others present, especially those she wanted to remind of his position in the Federal government.

  Grant excused them and guided her to one side. “I need to leave. Hart thinks he knows something about the case.”

  Julia’s eyes lit up. “What have you found?”

  “Hart thinks he might know where the papers Granby gave to Caroline are. We don’t have much time. I need to leave now.”

  She smiled and tapped his arm. “Go then. You’re worse than little Jesse at times, wanting to run off, but I want to hear all about it when you get home.”

  Grant raised an eyebrow. “You don’t mind?”

  “Not at all. As soon as I find Papa, we’ll be leaving too. The crowd is thinning a bit, and I’m fatigued.”

  He nodded. “Then find the old… your father, and head home. I should be there soon.”

  With that, he left.

  Hart was already waiting at the doors for him. Grant, in his military finery, had no problem in flagging down a carriage. Good thing the driver recognized him and paid him deference. The man looked positively rebellious when Hart told him where they wanted to go. Bucktown at night was no place for a carriage of any ki
nd. The ruffians would try to steal the horse and take the seats from the carriage. He looked at Grant one last time and assented.

  The carriage made excellent time on Sixth Street, the horse clopping along the stones. The driver barely stopped for the pair to alight once they reached the shanty on Broadway. The pair strode to the door in step with each other. The night air had mixed with a cold wind from the river; it was a night for a warm fire.

  The carriage took off for better parts before they’d reached the shanty. It would be a cold walk back to the hotel from here. Hart knocked on the door, which held firm against his rap.

  The second Mrs. Granby opened the door with a child on her hip. Grant and Hart spied the nascent flames in the corner. Hart moved through the doorway without even brushing against the widow. He yanked a kerchief from his pocket and immediately snatched the papers from the grate, dropping them on the mud floor and stepping on them twice. The red embers that had trimmed the pages were gone, replaced by muck and mud.

  Hart looked at the first page and called out, “General, I think you’ll want to look at these.”

  Chapter 18

  Grant read the papers for a second and then looked up at the woman who stood there. “Where did you get these?”

  She looked at him, defiant and sad all at once. Grant figured she was trying to figure out a way to talk herself out of this mess, but it wasn’t likely to happen. The papers told a shocking story.

  “Well?” Grant waited.

  As Hart had predicted, the room had a chill to it, and the child clung near to his mother. Another twenty minutes and the papers would have been gone, and with it, a large clue as to what had happened.

  As he waited for Mrs. Granby to answer, Grant realized the enormity of what they’d just found. From what Grant had seen, the stack of papers were invoices from the Mill Creek Iron Works. The invoices were dated a year prior or more, and had destinations south of the Ohio River. Someone had crossed out the destinations, and Southern locations had been written in. Apparently, the Iron Works had been selling to the Rebels during the last year of the war. Grant knew that this happened. Greed trumped national pride and the annals of history. Businessmen found it far better to make a greenback today than to be remembered as a patriot in the history book 100 years from now. With their easy access to the Ohio, who was to say that a shipment of iron was going to a Union facility or not? Some of the cities on the great Mississippi’s tributaries were still in Rebel hands. How easy to take a side trip to sell iron at an inflated price.