Assassin of Shadows

by Lawrence Goldstone

  “Maybe.” Nor could Walter.

  Suddenly, Harry looked up at Walter in a way Walter had never seen him do before. With fear. “But could he really do it? TR? The man’s more American than an eagle. Kill the president to get the job?”

  “Hawkesworth thinks he could.” Walter decided to avoid using Abe Isaak to buttress his argument.

  “TR. Shit.”

  “I like the man too, Harry.”

  “I guess I’m not really surprised. Who else would have the balls to try such a stunt? But why wouldn’t he just wait until ’04 and win the job on his own?”

  “Impossible to ever know what’s in someone’s mind. Maybe he thinks Hanna’s got a fix in to get the nomination. Maybe TR decided if he doesn’t get the job first, he’ll never get it. But let’s not make the same mistake everyone made about Goldman. Before we start accusing the vice president of attempted murder, we best have a lot more to go on than a drawing from . . .” Walter bit off the name.

  “From a concerned citizen?” Harry asked.

  “Yeah. That’s it.”

  “So you still want to go to City Hall.”

  “We’ve got to. We made such a stink about conducting our own interrogation, it would look pretty hokey if we cancelled. Besides, we’ve only got a theory. It’s a little too soon to abandon all the others.”

  “And you want to meet Goldman.”

  “Yeah. Of course I do.”

  24

  Walter despised Emma Goldman and all that she stood for, but still, how could he not be curious to meet “the high priestess of anarchy,” as the newspapers had flamboyantly called her? The woman, no matter what her beliefs, held an undeniable fascination. She was smart, committed, and certainly every bit as tough as anyone Walter had ridden beside on the trail. As he and Harry were led through a labyrinthine passage at City Hall, Walter fought to suppress a disquieting need to impress her.

  Two coppers stood outside an office down the hall from Mayor Harrison’s. One of them opened the door and Harry and Walter walked through. The room was more parlor than office. Sitting on one side were Mayor Harrison and Chief of Police O’Neill. In another chair, back to the door, her manacled hands on her lap, was Emma Goldman. Standing off to one side, hands in his pockets, was Hannigan, a dumb smirk on his dumb face.

  Goldman turned her head to see who was entering, but did so with the same insouciance as had Mark Hanna in the presidential suite in Buffalo. Here was a woman, Walter realized, who was accustomed to dominating every group of which she was a part, no matter if it was a roomful of enemies. Even the handcuffs, a ludicrous appurtenance with Mike Hannigan standing nearby, did not detract from the power of the woman’s presence.

  Walter had never seen anyone who could be at once so physically unattractive yet so commanding. Goldman’s features were thick, without delicacy, a strong jaw and down-turned mouth, and small, watchful eyes behind the signature pince-nez perched on her nose, attached to a lanyard draped from one corner around her neck. She was wearing a white shirtwaist, blue cheviot skirt, and leather boots. In different clothing and with slightly shorter hair, she might easily have been mistaken for a man.

  She squinted and blinked for a moment and Walter knew that Hannigan had used the lights on her. Even he would not have dared try anything more direct. Sucker punching Abe Isaak was one thing, striking Emma Goldman quite another.

  Goldman turned back to Harrison and O’Neill. She behaved as if Hannigan was not in the room. “These are not your men, I take it.” She spoke with an accent vaguely European, yet somehow totally American.

  Neither man answered. Despite their even expressions, Walter could see that both were intimidated. It was all he could do not to smile. Walter was used to sizing a person up right away and, damn, he found himself liking Emma Goldman.

  “As I suspected,” she said softly. “In that case, I would prefer to speak to these gentlemen alone.” She made just the briefest tilt of her head toward Mike Hannigan.

  The mayor and police commissioner glanced at one another. Each knew that it was unconscionable to let a prisoner dictate terms—especially this prisoner—but each decided that they would be happy to leave the room. O’Neill cocked his head at Hannigan, giving only the tiniest bit more notice than had Goldman, and then the three walked out and closed the door behind them.

  Harry and Walter pulled chairs to sit across from her. Walter thought about removing the manacles, but decided not to do so unless he was asked.

  Goldman blew out a sigh, the sort of thing one does with misbehaving children. “I scarcely knew the man,” she began. “He was leaving Rochester via Buffalo when he came up and had a few words with me. He said he had heard me lecture at some memorial hall in Cleveland last May and that he wanted to know me. I remember almost nothing about him save that his complexion was light. But he was zealous . . . much too zealous. As you know, Abe Isaak thought he was a police spy and even put a notice in his newspaper to that effect. I would have tended to agree.”

  Walter did not want to talk about Abe Isaak. “How did you feel when you found out he was the one who shot the president?”

  Goldman shrugged. “I certainly realized he wasn’t a police spy.”

  Walter waited. Harry was evidently going to let him run the show.

  After a long pause, she said. “I thought, ‘Oh, the fool.’”

  “You have affection for President McKinley?”

  “I have no more affection for him than for anyone else who gains power by exploiting the powerless. But I do not advocate violence.”

  “What about inciting Alexander Berkman to murder Henry Frick?”

  “That was self-defense. Frick was systematically starving women and children. We work against the system, Mr . . .”

  “George.”

  “Mr. George. Not to violence. Education is our watchword, not murder.”

  “Still, Czolgosz seems to think you inspired him.”

  “Am I to be accountable because some crack-brained person put a wrong construction on my words? Leon Czolgosz, I am convinced, planned the deed unaided and entirely alone. There is no anarchist ring that would help him. I think he was one of those downtrodden men who see all the misery the rich inflict upon the poor, who think of it, who brood over it, and then, in despair, resolve to strike a great blow, as they think, for the benefit of their fellow men. I understand what would motivate a person to violence . . . I simply think that it is an urge that must be suppressed.”

  Walter decided to change direction. “You will be charged with conspiracy to murder the president. I’m told that the Buffalo authorities are seeking to have you extradited. They claim to have sufficient evidence to prove you were involved.”

  Goldman offered a brief smile. “They can have no evidence unless they manufactured it themselves.”

  “But what about your recent meeting?”

  “There was none. The young man came to Abe Isaak’s house, asking to see me. I’m not certain how he even knew I was in Chicago, or why he came to be there. He seemed to believe that I would want to speak with him. I refused. Abe Isaak warned me that he was a police agent. When he came to see me on the train platform, I was civil with him, but nothing more.”

  Walter glanced to Harry who did not deign to break his silence. Not that it mattered. There was nothing more to get.

  After they returned Goldman to her Chicago hosts, Walter and Harry excused themselves and left. Mike Hannigan looked oddly self-satisfied as they passed him on their way out.

  “Well, Harry, what do you think?” Walter asked, once they were clear of the building.

  “That’s one hard woman.”

  “Pretty convincing too, wouldn’t you say?”

  Harry grunted.

  “What say we try to run down the other lead instead of staying on this one?”

  “Smith and Jones?” He thought for a moment. “Yeah. Let’s do that. You think they’re Chicago-based, don’t you?”

  “Makes sense. Unless somebo
dy Chicago-based imported them.”

  But Smith and Jones did not prove easy to find, despite perfect descriptions. They were not coppers—both Harry and Walter checked their sources—nor were they local Pinkertons, or Pinkertons at all as far as anyone could tell. Harry even called on an old, retired saddle buddy who did a little checking with his army pals. No one had anything to go on.

  “What a waste of a day,” Harry groused into his beer.

  Walter took another bite of his steak but didn’t answer. They had splurged and gone to the State Street Chop House, sort of a concession to reaching a dead end.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” he muttered.

  “That’s the worst thing you can say about anything,” Harry grunted back. “At least you’re off ‘odd.’ And it does make sense. To me anyway. The two guys weren’t from here. Which leaves us exactly nowhere.”

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Walter repeated.

  “Okay, Walter, I’ll be an idiot and ask. What doesn’t make sense?”

  “That the trail would go cold. Doesn’t make sense.”

  Harry was about to ask what the fuck that meant, when they spotted Tom Laverty striding across the room in their direction. Laverty was a Chicago dick, but one of the good guys.

  “Hi Harry. Walter.” Laverty was medium height, with rust-colored hair, and wiry like a boxer. He had a series of scars running across his face from when he went through a store window taking down some drunken Kraut who was chasing his wife with a butcher knife right on Michigan Avenue. He had clearly not come across Harry and Walter by chance.

  “Tommy.” Harry nodded. “How’d you know where to find us?”

  Laverty shrugged. “I am a cop, Harry.”

  Harry decided to let that go.

  “Those two guys you was asking about,” Laverty went on. “We found ’em.” He sighed. “Sorry, guys. They wasn’t breathin’.”

  25

  Thursday, September 12, 1901

  It was after midnight when Walter and Harry arrived at the sprawling Cook County Hospital on Harrison Street, site of the city morgue, and the current address of Smith and Jones.

  They saw exactly what they expected to see. Each was dead from a single gunshot wound to the head, delivered from four to six feet away, with no signs of a struggle beforehand.

  After that, they headed to police headquarters where they persuaded the night sergeant to let them see the report, persuasion aided by the two dollar bills Harry slid across the sergeant’s desk.

  Smith, whose real name turned out to be Gardner Beech, and Jones, whose name was actually Jones, Ezekiel Jones, had been found by their landlady in rooms they had rented only a half mile away, in Garfield Park. The door to Beech’s room had been left open, and when the landlady happened by, he was quite visible, sitting in a chair with a bullet wound under his left eye. Jones had been found in a similar state in the room next door. Assuming the two were sufficiently professional not to just sit around when one of them was shot, it seemed apparent that at least two gunmen had been sent to dispatch them. Perhaps more.

  “This make more sense to you now?” Harry asked Walter as they left the building and walked into a chilly, early fall drizzle.

  “Yeah, Harry. Just like it makes sense to you.”

  “Closing the ring.” Harry sucked in a breath. In each man’s room had been found approximately $500 is crisp greenbacks. Beech had his stuffed in his socks, which needed mending, and Jones’s fortune was in an envelope taped to the back of a drawer. Easy to find. Each man also had received a telegram three days earlier telling them to proceed as agreed.

  The telegrams had been sent from Buffalo.

  “Walter . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “If whoever set this up is covering their tracks . . . you might want to see about that concerned citizen who did the drawings.”

  Walter nodded. “I was going there now.”

  “At three in the morning . . .”

  “Just to check things out. I’ll stop by later to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Not too much later.”

  Walter nodded. “I’ll be in time to catch the train.” Walter threw Harry a surprised look. “I thought you’d be upset.”

  Harry shook his head and allowed a little grin. “She’s seeing someone, Walter.”

  “Lucinda.”

  “Yes, Walter. Lucinda. I wasn’t talking about the Kolodkin woman.”

  “Who is it?” Walter was extremely surprised to find himself . . . jealous.

  “Guy works for Olds. The car maker. He handles accounts. She met him in church of all places. About a month ago. She wouldn’t let on to me because she said I’d scare him off.”

  “You’re a scary guy, Harry.” He couldn’t help but ask. “Have you met him? What’s he like?”

  Harry laughed. “I haven’t met him, but evidently he’s sort of round, and bald. Think she could find someone more opposite from you?”

  “No. I guess not.” But she’d said if he ever wanted her, she’d be there. Guess she finally decided he never would.

  “Okay, Walter. Go do your errand. But be at the station by ten.”

  Harry spun on his heel and headed off to get a couple of hours sleep. Was he really not upset? Lucinda with a short, fat, bald accountant, instead of . . . him?

  When he reached Natasha Kolodkin’s street, he walked slowly, staying close to the buildings, looking for movement. Only one flickering gas lamp at the far corner provided light and the on-and-off drizzle would further obscure anyone lurking about. But Walter had been doing this long enough that he could sense movement and, except for a couple of pushcart vendors moving in the road to get an early start on their day, there was none.

  But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any . . . or hadn’t been already. Walter had no intention of leaving until he knew Natasha was safe and that he had warned her that she would have to be extremely vigilant in order to stay that way. He found himself a spot against a building that was completely in shadows and set himself to wait until he could knock on Mrs. Freundlich’s door.

  The sky began to lighten at about 5:30. Even with the drizzle, Walter could see now clearly up and down the street, but he could be seen as well. His hat brim had shielded his head and neck, but his vest, shirt, and pants had soaked through. He’d spent many days in the saddle like this, but had come to hate the damp. Still, can’t very well pitch yourself a tent and sit smoking a cigar.

  He heard a clatter and saw the milk wagon making its way up the street, the horse’s head bobbing up and down as if it were keeping time. Milk delivery was a luxury so the mustachioed milkman, dressed in his white coveralls, made less than a dozen stops. One of them, however, was Mrs. Freundlich’s. The man left one large and one small bottle—cream—before moving on. People fetched their dairy as soon as they awakened, so, as soon as the door opened, Walter would be able to move across the street.

  While he waited, he once more tried to figure out what was going on. That Czolgosz had been baited into shooting McKinley there could be no doubt, nor that anarchists almost certainly had been no part of it, no matter what the newspapers were saying. Maybe Czolgosz would talk if he were confronted with Smith and Jones, but Walter didn’t think so. The last thing he was going to admit was that he had been played for a fool.

  Walter laughed softly. Or was it he that was being played for the fool?

  The door to Mrs. Freundlich’s cracked open. Walter made a move to start across the street but stopped when he saw that the head that emerged and looked up and down the street before snatching up the milk bottle and then the cream was not the German woman’s. In fact, it was not a woman’s at all.

  The man was young, in his twenties, clean shaven, with sandy-colored hair and a furtive manner. Walter raced across the street and up the steps to the front. He listened for only an instant, and then, drawing his Colt, threw his shoulder against the wooden door. It creaked loudly, then popped open. Walter stepped through in a crouch holding
the Colt leveled in front of him.

  The next sound was not a shot but instead that of breaking glass as the milk bottle smashed on the wooden floor and Walter stood face to face with an utterly terrified Mrs. Freundlich. She was standing wide-eyed in her night dress, her right hand still held in front of her from where she had been holding the bottle. Walter looked at his feet and the puddle of white liquid that was slowly encircling the soles of his boots.

  His mouth began to move, but nothing came out. He stared down at his own right hand and the Colt, and tried to return it to its holster, missing twice before he finally found the mark. The sandy-haired man suddenly appeared from the back and Walter realized that he had grabbed the bottle so stealthily because he was wearing only his underwear.

  “Who . . .” was the only word Walter could manage.

  “It’s my nephew, Hans,” Mrs. Freudlich whispered, the words coming out like they had been scratched with sandpaper.

  “I’m sorry . . . I thought . . .” Walter looked down again. “Let me clean . . .”

  Mrs. Freundlich shook her head. She started to say that she would do it, but the words wouldn’t come. Hans disappeared into the back and returned a moment later with a bucket and a mop.

  “She’s not here,” Mrs. Freundlich muttered. Her voice, still weak, held more wonder than anger as she stared at the remains of her milk delivery.

  “I’ll send someone to fix the door,” Walter heard himself say, wondering why he didn’t ask where she was.

  “She left you a note.” Mrs. Freundlich’s slippers were soaked, but there was broken glass on the floor. She watched as Hans cleaned around her, picking up the shards as he mopped up the remains. Hans occasionally turned toward Walter with total contempt as he completed the chore. He had yet to utter a word. Walter wasn’t even certain whether or not he spoke English.

  When the boy had mopped up and cleared the glass, Mrs. Freundlich looked about, trying to decide whether or not to track milk across the floor in her sodden slippers or risk stepping on an errant piece of glass by walking barefoot. Her fastidiousness got the better of her and chose to tiptoe out the room barefoot. Her feet were thick and formless like small hams, but she was surprisingly delicate. After a few moments, she returned in a new pair of slippers, holding a small gray envelope.