He knew the man too well to take even the slightest offense. “I’m only hoping my new shoes have stretched out by now, for I can’t remember my feet ever being so sore after an evening’s revelry.”
“They didn’t seem to be bothering you when you were dancing with the pretty young woman in white,” Lincoln added with a wink, then slipped into the study where the others waited.
Adam retrieved his Colt and hat, then bid farewell to McManus at the door.
The brisk March night was dark. Heavy gray clouds filtered across the moon and blanketed the swath of stars. The few gaslights that studded Lafayette Square left yellow pools of illumination spilling around them. On the bite of the air, Adam could smell the dull, earthy scent of the marsh that moldered and stewed just down a small incline from the President’s House, and past the elliptical horse corral.
He was pleased to see two guards now standing at the ready near the entrance to the grounds. Though that didn’t seem nearly enough security to protect a man half the country seemed to want to kill, at least there was something. He tipped a greeting with his hat and started off into the First Ward, heading north on Sixteenth from the mansion.
Adam’s smile faded a little as he left the stately white house behind him. If Hurst Lemagne was found to be the murderer of Custer Billings, Constance would be devastated.
And the handsome, proper Arthur Mossing would just as surely be there to comfort her.
Adam put that thought aside quickly; it made no matter to him what went on between Miss Lemagne and her suitor. He reckoned she would soon be returning to Alabama, especially with war on the horizon and the way she proudly wore her secessionist cockade.
Unless she married the man, and stayed in Washington.
But Adam couldn’t put away the possibility of Hurst Lemagne plunging a dagger into a man’s chest. His daughter claimed that his bark was worse than his bite, and that he had a temper but wouldn’t even whip his horses (Adam had refrained from asking about his slaves), but most certainly the man had had the opportunity to do the job during his disappearance from the ball.
It was Lemagne’s weapon—a family heirloom, no less—that had been pulled out of the body and tossed into the closet along with the man’s dress coat. And why had Billings’s dress coat been removed anyway? It seemed like a risk to take the time to do something like that—along with removing the dagger from between the time Fremark had found the body until Miss Gates had come on the scene. Not to mention moving the body inside from where it had originally been stabbed.
And on top of all that, there was the unpleasant fact that Billings and Lemagne had been heard arguing; so there was definitely bad blood between them. That was one question Adam hadn’t been able to ask the older man before his daughter returned and he clammed up.
No matter how you looked at it, all facts seemed to point to the man from Mobile, Alabama, being the culprit, and Adam found himself wanting desperately to find another explanation.
And yet . . . if it had been Lemagne who killed Billings, he would have had to be the one who stabbed Lyman Fremark, late yesterday evening.
If Adam could determine where Lemagne had been during the time frame Fremark went to the Willard looking for him and then on to the President’s House, that could give Constance’s father an alibi . . . or put him into an even worse situation.
The farther up Sixteenth Adam walked, the fewer people he encountered on foot. Several couples, arm in arm—perhaps walking home from dinner at a neighbor’s house. A group of three men who’d clearly had a few ales too many, loud and raucous with their laughs cracking and their jeers slapping the silence of the night. Two men standing on a street corner, speaking soberly beneath a gaslight, one of them gesturing vehemently with his hat. An occasional waft of burning tobacco or food cooking filtered through the air, but mostly he smelled the crisp chill of a March night.
As Adam strolled along, the pristine streets of rectangular two-and three-story brick houses with their stamp-sized yards and neat walkways had begun to give way to the raw innards of the interior neighborhoods. The alleys that filled in the spaces behind the residences of the wealthy weren’t decorated with gaslights or the steady clip-clop of carriages returning their owners home.
Here the darkness yawned like a big black nothing in the shadows of fancy houses and well-lit rooms. It wasn’t even a beautiful darkness, like that of the plains when the sky was dark. Here in this inky world, dark and random shapes spilled over into the narrow grid between shack and shack, sparingly gilded by hints of moonlight. There was little sign of life in this dark bowl of meagerness; the destitute had gone to bed with the sun.
Just as Adam was about to turn onto K Street, he confirmed what he’d suspected almost since he’d left the Executive Mansion: someone was following him.
A little dart of apprehension rushed over him, but he shoved it away coldly. A single man was hardly a threat, even to a one-armed fool like himself.
And this was not Kansas.
This was not the deep, still night in a thrust of thick trees outside Lawrence, where a pro-slavery army of men had been waiting to ambush Adam and his friends.
There wouldn’t be the whine and bite of bullet, the searing pain of being pummeled, beaten, kicked, stomped on as he bled into the dirt while trying to get to the house in time, to help Mary and little Carl . . . then the agony of watching the house go up in flames, burying the screams of those inside.
Adam shook his head, forcing the sudden nausea from the pit of his belly, fighting to keep his fingers from trembling as they curled around the metal grip of his Colt. He drew in a deep, clean breath of brisk night air and felt its calmness flow through him.
You’ve gotten soft, Quinn. Sleeping on a feather bed in a fancy hotel.
Steadier now, he turned into the dark alley, took three quick steps, and dodged into the depths of a shadow. He waited until the figure walked past; then the other man hesitated when he realized he’d lost his quarry.
Adam drew the Colt as he stepped out of the darkness. “Looking for someone?” He held the pistol so the scarce bit of moon highlighted its presence. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
The man turned slowly, his arms out from his sides as directed. He was wearing a hat low on his head, and it shadowed his face. Only the curve of a jaw and the hint of nose could be discerned in the dim light.
“Why are you following me?” Adam said, the barrel of the gun steady and glinting in the dark.
“I have a message for you,” replied the man in a low voice. “If you’re Adam Quinn.”
“And what would that message be?” He didn’t allow the pistol to waver.
“You’re turning up things better left alone. You’d best stay—”
Adam felt rather than heard the movement behind him, and, cursing, swung around. He pulled the trigger a hair too late, for as he pivoted, the man behind him had swung out with an arm-thick pole. The blow struck Adam, smashing against his upper arm hard enough to rattle his teeth and send him reeling back, and the bullet whined harmlessly through the night.
Cursing, he stumbled and caught himself, just barely managing to hold on to the pistol, and whipped up and around with the gun in his hand. The satisfying smack of the metal butt across the face of his first adversary was only a momentary victory, for a second blow from the man behind him caught his shoulder as he came around.
Adam staggered back, then roared and charged forward and low. He dodged another swipe from the wooden club brandished by his attacker, and struck out again with the sharp, heavy gun. This time, he heard the crunch of bone that could have been a nose or even a tooth, and the cry of pain from his victim.
Heaving with effort, he spun back to face another onslaught and caught the sharp gleam of metal arcing toward him in the low light. With a shout, he threw up his false arm just in time to deflect the blow. The blade slammed deep into the wooden prosthetic with a great jolt. Adam stifled a groan of pain, but his attacker cried out
with shock and rage as he found he couldn’t withdraw his weapon from the new pine wood. Adam used this advantage to pull him into a parody of an embrace, jamming his gun barrel into the man’s throat.
“Who sent you?” he panted as his captive squealed for the other man to “Hold off!”
Keeping the Colt pushed firmly into his adversary’s neck, Adam eased back a little so he could get a look at the other attacker. He was still restricted by the knife wedged into his prosthetic arm, but the other man didn’t know that.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” he growled, shoving the pistol in a little harder. “Who sent you with this message?”
“The-the Association.”
Fully aware of the second man standing barely in his peripheral vision, Adam angled toward him. “What’s the Association?”
But before the man could respond, something moved in the darkness. There was a soft squeak from new shoes, and a slight figure emerged from the shadows.
“Mr. Quinn? Is that you?”
No. Hell. No. “Get out of here,” he snarled, turning toward the boy. “Go! Get the hell out of—”
The club caught him fully across the shoulders this time, knocking the breath from him and whipping his head back. His finger snapped on the trigger and the pistol kicked in his hand as he lost his grip. The man against him cried out and shuddered as the bullet struck him.
Adam wrenched his fake arm away from the knife as the Colt tumbled to the ground, then bounced off into the darkness. Dull pain shot through him as the prosthetic’s bindings dragged and burned over his torso and upper arm as the knife blade tore free, even as he was struck squarely between his shoulder blades. His wounded attacker tumbled back, and, breathless and throbbing with pain, Adam roared again as he spun around to face the man behind him.
He was met with the club once more, and this time it was a vicious swipe toward his torso. Already staggering and heaving, he barely managed to fling up his arms to ward off the strike, and the club smashed into his wooden arm with an ugly crunch.
Adam cried out with rage and pain as the shock of the blow reverberated horribly along his arm, but could hardly catch his breath before he was pummeled again.
He heard someone shouting, and the sound of something cracking in the air. . . . Then pain exploded at the back of his head.
Darkness overtook him as he fell.
CHAPTER 13
ADAM SLOWLY BECAME AWARE OF HIS SURROUNDINGS . . . MAINLY because someone was shaking him. Whoever owned the hands yanking and pulling at him didn’t seem to care that each forced movement sent renewed waves of agony through his body.
“Mr. Quinn! Can’t you wake up, Mr. Quinn?”
With a groan, Adam forced his eyes open in the hopes that the incessant shaking would stop. He tasted blood on his lip and areas of his body pounded, but he recognized the slim shadow hovering over him.
“Off . . . me,” he managed to grunt. “Brian . . . get off.”
The hands stopped. Oh, thank merciful Jesus, they stopped. Now he was just throbbing with pain, instead of being shaken harder into it. Blood dripped from several places and soaked wet and warm in others.
“You’re alive. Thanks be to the Virgin! You’re alive! He’s alive, Mam!”
“Well, it’s no wonder, the way you’re about doddering the man to his death. He wouldn’t have a chance to slip off to either heaven or hell with the likes of you badgering at him, Brian. I told you to wait for me. I hope you haven’t hurt him more.”
Now Adam could make out an actual circle of people gathered around him. Or maybe his vision was just blurry. There were at least two . . . maybe three. Four? His head hurt.
Feeling foolish and weak—not to mention angry as hell—he struggled to sit up, and suddenly slender arms and hands were helping him, prodding and tugging. “Don’t be rushing it, there, now, mister,” said the woman who could only be Brian’s mother. She had a thick Irish accent and smelled like boiled potatoes and wood smoke.
“I’m fine.” The words came out in something almost like a snarl, and he sucked in a breath to stop himself saying something else ungrateful. “Thank you, Mrs. Mulcahey. I’ll be fine in a moment.”
“Mr. Quinn.”
A different voice, heralding a newcomer just coming into view from the shadows, had him looking up at the familiar figure of George Hilton.
Good Christ. Was everyone from the First Ward here, watching him get his arse beat to a pulp?
“I’m fine,” Adam said. This time he allowed the snarl in his tone—he reckoned Hilton could handle it—and pulled firmly away from the slender, rough-skinned female hands that fussed over him.
But when he tried to pull to his feet, he realized two unpleasant things: first, he was too weak and a little dizzy to accomplish standing on his own—so he leaned casually against a convenient piece of fence—and, second, his prosthetic arm dangled, battered and useless, from his aching stump.
Damn it all.
“What’re you doing here?” he demanded of Hilton in an effort to deflect the attention from himself as he struggled to remain upright. At some point, most of the clouds had been torn away by some celestial being, and now the half-moon shone a bit more light into the night.
“There was a louder ruckus than usual, sir,” Hilton replied in a voice that was too formal for the occasion. “And this young man was screeching at the top of his lungs that Mr. Quinn was dead.” He shrugged and spread his hands, and when he continued, there was the slightest hint of humor in his voice. “I suppose ’at I could’ve stayed in my bed, though, sir.”
Adam frowned. “Didn’t you send for me? What the hell were you doing in your bed, if you were expecting me?” He looked around, suddenly remembering his Colt, even as his head spun and pounded. “And where’s my pistol? Did they make off with that?” He wanted to go off and search for it but didn’t trust his knees to work properly. Hell. Mrs. Mulcahey was watching him as if she expected him to collapse right there.
Damned if she might be right. He gripped the piece of fence and instructed his knees not to give way.
“I got your gun.” Brian offered him the Colt with great reverence. “I shot at them.”
Now more details were beginning to filter back into his mind. Adam looked grimly at the boy, suddenly realizing how fortunate both of them were that Brian was still standing on two steady legs. In his brand new boots. “You were there—you saw them. And you shot them?”
“Aye, but I missed,” Brian replied matter-of-factly. “But it scared them anyhow. And then I threw Bessie toward them, when they was beating on you. I climbed up there on that lean-to, you see, and tossed her down on them and made a lot of ruckus with the metal roofing—banging on it like it was the end of the world. They saw this big thing with wide, flapping wings coming down on them, and all the noise, and I shot the pistol again and shouted at them—and they were about running away faster ’an Bessie when Mam threatens to make her into soup.” He punctuated this speech by swiping his arm across his nose and giving a sharp sniffle.
“Well, I’m much obliged to you and to Bessie,” Adam replied.
“And then when you wouldn’t wake up, I ran off to get my mam. Because I knew she’d know what to do. She left Erin with Mrs. White so she could come right away, Mr. Quinn.”
“Much obliged to you as well, Mrs. Mulcahey. Thank you very much.”
“I’ll need to be getting back to my Erin now, Mr. Quinn, but I’m wanting you to know I’m obliged to you as well. The pies . . . the boots . . .” She shook her head, and in the dim light he saw her lips purse tightly as if to keep them from quivering. “And you need some tending to, there, I think, or you’ll be feeling even worse by dawn.”
“I’ll see to it,” said Hilton, who’d hovered behind the Mulcaheys and the several other bystanders who’d also been drawn from their dark houses.
“I don’t need any tending to,” Adam growled. He was enraged at being taken by surprise and nearly beaten to death—having bee
n saved by a twelve-year-old boy and a damned chicken. And now to be the subject of interest of a half-dozen people standing around, looking at him as he used a scrap of picket fence to keep from landing on his face. His tone must have warned them, for the rest of the gawkers melted away into the night.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Quinn,” Hilton said in that bland, formal voice of his. He stepped back even farther into the shadows. “No, sir.”
Adam scrubbed his working hand over his face and felt the blood and grit of pain even as his body thrummed and ached. He was being an ass. Besides, there was no way he could get himself anywhere without help.
“Dr. Hilton. Sir. I reckon I could use that wagon of yours—if you’d be willing. Since I don’t think this damned piece of fence is going to carry me back to the Willard.” In the partial darkness, Adam saw the faint outline of the man’s shoulders square up and turn back toward him.
“I don’t know if my wagon’s big enough,” Hilton rumbled as he returned. “For you and that big ole chip on your shoulder. Not to mention the whole barrel full of pride you seem to be carrying around with you.”
Adam barked out a surprised laugh, then groaned when it made him hurt. A lot. He caught his breath, still grinning at the man’s unexpected wit. “I reckon you can squeeze all of it in if you put me on the bottom.”
“Leastways I can try,” Hilton agreed. He sounded even more relaxed now. “You want to come with me or wait here? I can treat you in my office at the church.”
Adam drew in an experimental breath and decided. “I’ll wait. I should return to the Willard as soon as possible, if it’s all the same to you.” His uncle was leaving in the morning, and aside from that, he wanted to get back where he could try to find out who’d set the two thugs on him. Only one had spoken, but he’d been neither a Northerner nor a drawling westerner.
“Shouldn’t take long. Try not to get beat up again.” Hilton’s white teeth flashed in the dark, and then he went off into the night at a quick jog.
Adam muttered a curse after the man, then, blessedly, allowed himself to sink to the ground. He had his Colt at the ready—how many bullets were left anyway?—if he needed it.
Murder in the Lincoln White House Page 20