Assassin of Shadows

by Lawrence Goldstone

  “Dear Walter.” The writing was flowing and letters perfectly formed. “If you are reading this, you have come by for one of two reasons. I hope it was to check to see if I had come to harm. If so, you have my thanks. I knew I was in extreme danger before you did, and have taken steps to ensure my safety. I will miss the children. They are our future and it pains me to leave them. But I have no choice.

  “If, however, you have come for the second reason, please believe that I did truly have feelings for you and that nothing I said or did was in any way dishonest in that regard. I expect we will not see one another again, which would be better for both of us. I will always remember you with great fondness and can only hope you can feel something of the same for me.”

  It was signed, “With enduring affection, Natasha.”

  “Enduring affection?” Walter was stunned. He’d been jilted by two women in eight hours. Well, jilted wasn’t exactly the right term, was it? But what was? And why did he feel as if he’d just been spat on?

  And, just as important, even though it didn’t feel that way . . . what was Natasha’s second reason?

  26

  Emma Goldman wasn’t going to be extradited to Buffalo after all. Nor was Abe Isaak or anyone else. In fact, one day after all but accusing her of masterminding a plot to assassinate the President of the United States, law enforcement officials in both New York and Illinois were forced to admit they had no evidence at all to tie her or any other anarchist to the crime. The Erie County District Attorney, Thomas Penney, insisted to reporters that Goldman hadn’t been cleared, and that law enforcement officials were working tirelessly to find the link between her and Leon Czolgosz. He assured a nervous public that if she were released from jail, she would be kept under the closest surveillance.

  The only two people going from Chicago to Buffalo turned out to be Walter George and Harry Swayne.

  “What are we going to tell Wilkie?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it Harry.” Walter thought. “I think we tell him about Smith and Jones and that the conspiracy notion is alive and well, but don’t tell him that the two of them didn’t seem like any anarchists we’ve ever seen.”

  “They could have been anarchists, right?”

  “Sure.”

  Harry dropped his shoulders and made to look matter-of-fact. “What you gonna say about your friend?”

  “Nothing.” Walter waited but Harry didn’t press. “I know she was involved in something, Harry. I’m not an idiot . . .”

  “No? Coulda fooled me.”

  “Okay, I behaved like an idiot . . . but we don’t know if she was part of this deal or some other . . . conspiracy. Let’s just work from Smith and Jones and see where it takes us. If Natasha . . . Kolodkin . . . seems to be involved, I’ll spill the whole thing to Wilkie myself. All of it.”

  Harry grunted, turned to rest the side of his head against the seat back and closed his eyes. Walter did the same, wondering if sleep would come. It did, within minutes.

  27

  Friday, September 13, 1901

  Walter and Harry knew the second they stepped off the train.

  William McKinley was dying.

  Just the day before, the president’s blood tests once again showed “not a trace of blood poisoning,” and his doctors proclaimed that, finally, less than one week after he’d been shot, he would be given food by mouth. He was running a low fever, 100.4, but his physicians were confident that his body was simply working overtime in its effort to heal his wounds.

  Twenty-four hours later, everything had changed. They could see it on the faces of those milling about but, even more, could feel the sense of dread and doom that permeated the terminal. Walking across the open waiting room, snippets of overheard conversation filled in the story. President McKinley had indeed been given beef broth, some toast, and coffee the day before and had enjoyed it so much that he had asked for a cigar. The doctors had denied the request but were heartened at the president’s robust enthusiasm. But a few hours later, McKinley had felt ill—the doctors said merely that the food had “disagreed with him.”

  His condition had deteriorated rapidly from there and by two in the morning, while Harry and Walter were bouncing around on the train, trying to get a couple of hours sleep, President McKinley was reported as being unconscious and near death. Now, just after eight, the president was hanging on to his life by the flimsiest of threads. The doctors had been reduced to praying for a miracle, but each of the three who had remained in Buffalo was reported to be dumbfounded at this turn of events. They had been certain the president was recovering. McBurney had returned to New York City and there was no mention of whether he would return. Both Harry and Walter would have given odds against it.

  Fitting for the mood, thunderstorms had been pounding Buffalo for twelve hours, and another struck during the carriage ride to Milburn House. Neither Harry nor Walter talked of McKinley’s impending death and the man who would move into the White House if it occurred. And another man, now sitting in the Buffalo jail, would most certainly die as well, taking whatever secrets he held as to the inspiration for his crime with him.

  Rain continued to pelt down as the carriage pulled up to Milburn House, but neither Harry nor Walter quickened their pace to the front door. Wilkie was waiting for them just inside. The linen suit had been exchanged for one of dark gray wool. His expression was even and unflinching—he did not even seem to blink. When Wilkie saw Harry and Walter enter, he flicked his head ever so slightly left and turned to walk in that direction

  The same conglomeration of operatives and Buffalo coppers were standing around as for their first visit—minus Smith and Jones—but this time they had been joined by a small army of nurses in white scurrying back and forth and up and the down the stairs, although Walter had not the slightest idea what they were doing. He had a feeling they did not either.

  Wilkie went into a small anteroom off the hall and closed the door behind him when the other two had entered.

  “Any hope?” Harry asked.

  Wilkie shook his head, just once slowly to each side. “Officially, there’s no change, but I don’t think he’ll last out the day.”

  “Shit.”

  “What’s the matter, Swayne? I thought you wanted Roosevelt.”

  Harry took two steps toward Wilkie, his right hand balled in a fist, before Walter could intercept him. Wilkie hadn’t backed up a step and never let his eyes go off Harry’s. That made Wilkie either extremely brave or extremely dumb.

  “Fuck you,” was all the Harry could get out.

  Wilkie nodded. “Okay, Swayne. I just needed to make sure.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “We’ll get to that. But first, tell me about the two guys.”

  “Beech and Jones?”

  “Yes, Swayne. Who else? But you might as well stay with Smith and Jones. There’s no record of anyone fitting that description named either Gardner Beech or Ezekiel Jones. Certainly not with anyone who could have gotten them in here.”

  “So they used aliases to cover up aliases,” Walter mumbled.

  “Aliases are pretty standard, wouldn’t you say, Mr . . . George.”

  Walter just glared, wondering whether Wilkie tried to make himself detestable or it just came naturally.

  “All right,” Wilkie went on, “let’s get this straight. We’re going to have a new president and we’re left trying to figure out what really happened to the old one. That’s all I’m interested in. I know you two, and just about everyone else in the division, hopes they’re going to get to work for someone else. Maybe you will and maybe you won’t, but as long as I’m in charge of this investigation, I want it done right. Which means that if you or anyone else wants to cut corners, I’m the guy who’ll hold the scissors. Either of you have any problem with that?”

  Harry and Walter glanced at one another, but neither spoke.

  “Good. So . . . Smith and Jones. We checked all the telegraph offices. N
o record of a telegram being sent to either of them.”

  Walter would have been surprised if there had been a record.

  “So right now, they’re just a couple of ghosts, right? Any way to give them a little meat?” Wilkie at least had begun to sound like a lawman.

  “How about we show their pictures to the coppers around here?” Harry suggested. “We don’t have to say why.” That wasn’t going to do any good, Walter knew but didn’t say.

  “Sure, Swayne, but it isn’t going to take very long for even Buffalo coppers to figure out why you’re asking. Question is whether they’ll own to it if they recognize these guys. And what about the woman? Kolodkin isn’t it?”

  “We think she was killed by Smith and Jones to make sure she didn’t talk.”

  “I meant the other one. Natasha. You knew her pretty well, didn’t you, George?”

  When Walter didn’t reply, Wilkie barked out a laugh. “I’m from Chicago, George. I have a lot of friends there.”

  “She skipped.” Walter told Wilkie about their meetings and the note, leaving out that she’d spent the night in his room. Didn’t matter. Wilkie had already guessed.

  “Okay,” Wilkie said when Walter had finished. “So we know Czolgosz was put up to the job, and we know he thought he was part of an anarchist plot. So, likely, did the Kolodkin woman that was killed, and maybe her sister too. Smith and Jones were probably involved in the setup, but the Kolodkin woman ducking out puts the anarchists back in the picture . . . maybe. That about right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you don’t think it was the anarchists, do you George?”

  Walter shook his head.

  “You think it was the vice president.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, George. Stop treating me like I’m a dunce. Maybe you want to ask him personally if he had anything to do with it. He’ll be on his way here later today.”

  “I never said . . .” Walter turned to Harry who didn’t turn back.

  Wilkie put up his hand. “Forget it, George. But tell me . . . if this wasn’t the president and vice president of the United States we’re talking about, would you think that the number two was a suspect if the number one got shot?”

  That, in fact, had been exactly what Walter had thought. “I’m not certain. You couldn’t eliminate him . . .”

  “No,” Wilkie replied. “You couldn’t.” He removed his glasses, polished them, and returned them to the bridge of his nose. “Well, it’s your investigation. You’d better find out one way or another. If it is Roosevelt, we can’t have a murderer sitting in the White House, no matter what his pedigree.”

  And then you get to keep your job, Walter could not help thinking.

  The second they were outside, Walter went at Harry. “Where did he get that from? We never said anything to anyone about it being TR.” Walter took a beat. “At least I didn’t.”

  “I don’t think I like this, Walter. You think it was me?”

  “No, Harry. But it wasn’t me.” Walter thought to Wilkie’s crack to Harry about preferring Roosevelt and how Wilkie hadn’t flinched when Harry came at him. Could it have been a setup? Harry?

  28

  Now that Leon Czolgosz was to be an assassin instead of a would-be one, security on his jail cell was increased and no one was allowed to speak to him, not even for interrogation. He would be assigned a lawyer in due course, brought to trial soon after, found guilty, and executed.

  The means would likely be the electric chair, recently invented by, of all people, a Buffalo dentist. It was supposed to be more humane than hanging, but Walter had thought of it as literally frying a person to death.

  Without being able to speak to the accused, and the telegraph office a dead end, there seemed little reason to hang around Buffalo.

  But maybe there was a reason.

  Harry was at the front desk of the Iroquois, looking at the train schedules, when Walter walked over. “Before we go, I want to check something out.”

  “What? There’s nothing but cold leads here.”

  “Maybe not. I’ve got an idea.”

  “An idea, huh? Sounds a little smoky. We getting secretive again, Walter?”

  Harry meant the question rhetorically . . . probably. But he was right all the same. “No, Harry,” Walter replied patiently. “I’m not getting secretive. In fact, why don’t you come along? I’m going make a visit to an art school.”

  Harry drew back. “Art school? What for? Want to learn to paint for after we’re bounced out of the bureau?”

  “Always good to have a trade.” Walter spoke lightly, but all the while trying to see if Harry tipped anything. He didn’t. But he wouldn’t. “So, want to come along?”

  Harry shook his head. “No, Walter. You go on ahead. I’ll just go and visit the local whorehouse.”

  Assuming Harry meant that facetiously—not a certainty—Walter realized that his partner could be off for a reason as conspiratorial as his. Still, it was better that Harry didn’t know what he was up to until he had some better information.

  And possibly even then.

  The desk clerk told Walter a woman who called herself Madame Romanova—same as the Russian tsar—had a “studio” four blocks away. She lived there as well, so it was likely she’d be home.

  Five minutes later, Walter walked up a flight of stairs under a sign that read “Atelier Romanova,” deep red script on a cream background, and entered a large room with north facing windows and skylights, its wide board floors speckled with every color of paint imaginable. Five easels were set up, positioned so that no student could peek at the work of another. Three of them were occupied, one by a scraggly man in his twenties, two by matrons wearing large smocks to keep the paint off their clothing. In the center of the room, on a stool was a large blue vase in which a single long stemmed white rose tilted against one side. Each of the three students seemed immersed in rendering his or her unique interpretation of the objects.

  Pacing behind the easels was a woman no more than five feet tall, dressed in a long skirt that featured as many colors as the floor, and a black long sleeved blouse that ballooned at the wrists. She appeared to be about eighty, but bounced around like a woman half that age. At Walter’s entrance, she paused for a moment, glanced up, flicked her wrist at him to get out, and then resumed her pacing. She stared at each student’s work but said nothing.

  Walter watched the show for a few moments, trying to decide if he were witnessing a melodrama or a farce. When he made no move to leave, Madame Romanova stepped from behind the easels and strode in his direction, hands on hips.

  “I asked you to leave, young man,” she said, displaying an accent that was in no way Russian. “New students are interviewed by appointment only.” The three students, obviously survivors of the interview process, stopped working to watch the confrontation.

  “I’m not a prospective student, Madame Romanova. I came to you with a request I thought you might find interesting. Of course, I’m happy to make the same request of a different artist.”

  Madame Romanova crossed her arms in front of her and rocked sideways from one foot to the other, trying to decide if this bearded man in the bowler, at least twice her size, could possibly have an artistic request worth considering.

  “Do you teach your students to paint traditionally . . . van Dyk, for example, or even Caravaggio . . . or more in the modern style? I very much like Cezanne’s Basket of Apples.”

  Madame Romanova smiled despite herself. “Please, young man, don’t take me for a fool, or try to impress me by throwing out a couple of names. What is the nature of your request?”

  Walter smiled in return. “Fair enough. I won’t take you for a fool if you will pay me the same courtesy. To answer your question, I’m with the United States Secret Service Division. I’d like you to recreate a face.”

  “Recreate? Secret Service Division? I’ve read about you people. Does this have something to do with that maniac?”

  Walte
r nodded slowly. At least the political question was answered. “It might.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Do you need this recreation done now?”

  “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  Madame Romanova spun on her heel, and aimed the same flick of the wrist with which she had favored Walter at the three students. “All right. Shoo. Leave everything as it is and come back tomorrow.”

  Madame Romanova must have been a sergeant in the army of whatever country she was actually from. The three put down their brushes, the women removed their smocks, and they were out of the room in forty-five seconds. The second the door was closed, she moved to a large drawing desk, cleared off some brushes and pencils, and placed a piece of drawing paper flat on the top.

  “I saw,” she said, her accent fading. “You guessed.” She flashed him a small grin, and he realized she must have been quite pretty once. Actually, he realized to his surprise, she still was.

  “Where are you really from?”

  “Coventry,” she replied, sounding like it. “But no one is going to take painting lessons from an Englishwoman. Russian isn’t the best, but at least it’s exotic. I just couldn’t get the Italian accent right.” She shrugged. “The Russian isn’t that good either, but it’s closer.”

  “I suppose. What shall I call you then?”

  “Madame, of course. And what should I call you, young man? Officer something?”

  “Walter will do nicely.”

  “All right, Walter.” She patted his forearm, which for some reason made him blush. “Tell me what you have in mind?

  Walter explained how Natasha had been able to draw lifelike portraits of Smith and Jones after meeting them only briefly, or at least so she had said. But perhaps Madame might be able to draw a similar portrait if Walter supplied a description, making corrections to the details along the way. She replied with a wrist flick, indicating it would be no problem at all.