She resolved to find and interview the reporter who had since left the paper a decade ago. Using every skill she learned at Pinkerton’s, she traced him to a tenement in New York City. There was no response to her knock. She walked to a better part of town, glad for the .38 concealed on her person.
Sarah knew she would not make it back to DC tonight. This was a prime lead.
She found a hotel she deemed respectably safe and checked in. She had brought a large handbag with overnight toiletries and a briefcase with her leather notebook and a couple relevant clippings she had purloined from the New York Sun’s clippings file on the president.
Sarah ate a light dinner and walked back to the area where the former reporter lived.
She knocked on the door and a sallow, thin man answered.
“Are you Matthew Ricard who used to write for the Sun?” she asked.
“Maybe. Who wants to know?”
“I am Mrs. Pope. I’m doing an article on the good and bad aspects of Chester A. Arthur. I gathered from your excellent article on the cotton deal during the war you were expert on one of the bad aspects.”
“I have suffered enough because of the damn article, lady. I was fired with no notice, beaten severely in a so-called mugging, and told after being beaten to never be a reporter or talk about Conkling or Arthur or Chadwick again.”
“Who did this?”
“The important part is who had it done. Any thug can beat somebody up for a fiver and deliver a message. Of the three, who is a known gangster?”
“This is all new to me, Mr. Ricard. Conkling?” she asked for verification.
“I am not saying his name aloud. Ever again. He was and maybe still is the most important man in New York. Actually any of the three could be behind ruining me. Maybe all three.”
“How did they expunge the records of the cotton consortium they ran?” she asked.
“What’s it worth to you?”
“Twenty dollars, maybe.”
He stood there until she withdrew the money and handed it to him.
“They are big time lawyers and the famous two have been involved with the customs house for years. The deals ran through there,” Ricard said.
“I might have some papers with evidence on them…” he suggested.
“If I was to see them and think they were helpful for my article, another twenty might be available.”
“Twenty is not worth dying for,” he said.
“Let me see them and I will make my decision.”
“Come in. I’ll dig them out.”
She entered and sat on a threadbare sofa while he rummaged around a box of files. It appeared to her his filing organization was no better than his housekeeping.
Finally, he pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed her five pages.
She looked at them. They were bills of lading from the consortium. No duty had been levied. They were transferred to Canada tax free.
“They were like finding pure gold,” she thought, keeping her face expressionless.
“These might help. Another twenty is all I can go.”
“Make it thirty and you walk out with them in your hand,” Ricard said.
“All right then. You win. Here’s the thirty dollars.” She handed him the bills and placed the papers in her briefcase.
“Anything else you can tell me, Mr. Ricard?”
“Yeah. Watch your back, asking questions about Conkling and the guy he mentored, and then who left him high and dry. They are both snakes as far as I am concerned.”
“Thanks for your help,” she said as she went out his door and began a very dark walk back to her hotel.
About four blocks from his building, Sarah felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.
They came at her fast. Three of them. They were burly and she could smell them before they closed on her.
Sarah was able to draw the dagger Pope had given her. She slashed one attacker and he recoiled in pain. The second one grabbed her arm as the third pulled at her handbag.
She thrust the dagger’s seven-inch blade into his throat and twisted the handle.
Sarah was only splattered by a little of the gush of blood, but the man holding her got a face full and let go. She drew the .38 Smith & Wesson and smacked the first man across the face with it. He went down. The one whose throat she had opened up still stood, dying on his feet.
The man who had grabbed her arm was trying to wipe his friend’s blood out of his eyes with a dirty sleeve.
Sarah pressed the revolver against his torso and fired it. Being pressed in and between two bodies, the sound was muffled. The man went down for the count.
The sound must have carried further than she thought. Sarah heard a police whistle in the distance. She walked across the street and hid behind a tree as two of the city’s finest ran up to the scene.
“What happened here?” the first policeman asked.
“A woman went crazy and shot Tony and stabbed Sean.”
“Yeah right! You are saying one woman killed two and severely wounded you?”
“I need a doctor!”
“And I need a hot cup of coffee. We are both gonna have to wait,” the officer said.
The man whined more about hurting.
The second officer said, “I know you. You guys rough people up for a living. I think you grabbed the wrong man or two and bit off more than you could chew. Woman? Ha! I’d like to meet the woman who could do this to you pukes! You still want to stick with your story?”
The man nodded.
“Then describe this woman who kicked the hell out of you and offed your two friends.”
“She was big. And mean.”
“What race?”
“White, I think.”
“Hair?”
“Dark.”
“Eyes?”
“I dunno. It was dark here. Still is.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing.”
“What was she wearing?”
“A dress, I guess.”
“You guess. So, this was a possibly white woman with dark hair, unknown eyes, who may have been wearing a dress, and said nothing as she shot one of you and stabbed two? Am I pretty much right?”
“Yep.”
“Your description is beyond worthless, you piece of dung. I am going to write ‘Got in fight with unknown person or persons and lost’, in my report. The bulls in the suits won’t touch this as a case. They will mark it like your two friends. Dead on arrival. Now, let’s go down to the lockup. Maybe somebody will patch you up there.”
Sarah began slowly walking away from the direction she was originally headed. She knew to walk slowly and not appear to be running from a scene of crime.
She stayed in the dark and under trees wherever possible. Seven blocks away, she stood under a gas lamp long enough to check herself for blood. She had a little on her dress. She used water in a ditch to swab as much as possible off with her handkerchief, then threw it in the bushes and walked on. She brushed her clothes and was fairly presentable when she made it back to near the hotel two hours later. She had made a wide circle. Before going in, she found a number of trash cans in an alley behind a restaurant and deposited the .38 in one and the bloody dagger in another. She walked back and entered the hotel. Knowing in reality she had gone west, she commented to the desk clerk over her shoulder she had gotten terribly lost walking east of the hotel. She could not hear his response as she walked on and began to climb the steps. Her hotel was not tall enough or well-funded enough to have one of the steam powered Otis elevators. She was happy it did not. This way, she avoided the scrutiny of an operator.
In her room, she removed her dress and examined it. She was sure in the dark and from the questions her survivor was answering for the police, she could not be identified. She took a washcloth and soap in the bathroom and stood naked scrubbing the faint remaining bloodstains on both herself and her dress. She then washed out the washcloths until they were clean.
&n
bsp; Sarah put out her travel clothes for the return to Washington by train in the morning.
Once back at the train station the next day, she checked schedules. She would be able to take a train up to Scarsdale and look around. The people Lincoln had heard got off there.
She realized there was nothing specific to look for, but it was an “i” one of the detectives had to dot.
A southbound train to New York City was due an hour and a half later.
In Scarsdale, she got off and walked around. Nothing. She had a snack for lunch and sat at the station waiting for the southbound.
Sarah took advantage of this time to watch people surreptitiously and listen to conversations. Again, her efforts were to no avail, but illustrative of detective work.
The southbound came and she boarded for the trip, stopping in New York City and onward to Washington, DC.
While this travel day was non-productive, the trip overall had been very productive. She organized her notes as she rode. By arrival, she had her report ready to share with Pope.
Sarah arrived back in Washington and went straight to the Willard. She fired the gas water heater associated with the cast iron enameled tub. Filling the tub with now-hot water, she soaked and later blotted off the last vestiges of last night’s fight while drying.
Convinced the New York police would not pursue the killing of two thugs and wounding of another, she dismissed the thought from her mind. Her sense of reason was much like Pope’s. Bad men decided to attack her and died by her self-defensive action. So be it.
She waited until Pope returned to the hotel instead of trying to find him at the President’s House. Her wait was not long.
Pope returned for lunch, primarily to assure himself his partner had safely returned.
In the privacy of the room, she told him about the attack and of being convinced there would be no repercussions. He agreed whole heartedly with her.
“Is there any way the attackers could have been watching your snitch’s house? Maybe Conkling’s men?” Pope asked.
“I really don’t think they would be watching him after this long. And I was careful about someone following me there. I truly doubt they did. I believe I was a victim of opportunity,” she said.
“Ha! You were the wrong ‘victim’ darling!”
Sarah had the records spread on a table in the room. She gave him the background on the cotton deal, and they discussed Conkling in detail.
“I think this is enough to have a meeting with one or both of our contacts. I will leave a letter for Lincoln and let him decide who, when and where,” Pope said.
She accompanied him and they dropped the letter on the way to lunch.
Pope, since his vague letter said he would be in the security office of the President’s House, returned there to await a response.
A message was left for the provost marshal by telephone to the telegraph room next door.
“Provost Marshal Pope. Please meet with me and a guest in my office at three o’clock. Bring your partner.” It was marked “from the Secretary of War” by the telegrapher.
Pope looked at his pocket watch. It was almost two. He returned to the Willard and he and Sarah quickly choregraphed their presentation. Armed with the notes and five pages of records which had been redacted from the Customs House, they walked over to the nearby War Building.
Lincoln’s secretary walked them down the hall to a very private conference room. Lincoln was there. Brewster sat at the head of the conference table with an open pad in front of him. Both men rose as they entered. All sat down once brief greetings were exchanged.
“What do you have for us, Mr. & Mrs. Pope?” the secretary of war asked.
“Two things. Let me do the briefest one first. We have established an eighteen-man cadre from Washington Arsenal to protect the President’s House. The office is adjacent to the telegraph room, to give us quick access to a telephone and telegraph. I have coordinated with the Washington Police Department. One officer and one trooper will be on 24/7 patrols with a soldier remaining at the desk for communications purposes. They have been provided specific weapons and have both standing orders and orders of the day. Sgt. Wilders from the Arsenal detachment will conduct daily inspections. I will split most of my time between there and my desk here.”
“Excellent. I trust your planning. Ben, any questions?”
“Not really. I am glad Washington Police remain engaged for arrest purposes from a constitutional standpoint.”
“I addressed the issue of posse comitatus in my briefing to the men,” Pope said.
Sarah stood.
“I will commence the second phase of our reports to you today. Please ask questions at any juncture.
“Our investigations have turned up some things we did not know about someone on our unofficial suspects list. Perhaps you know these things but have no proof. We have proof.
“The suspect is former Senator Roscoe Conkling. As I am sure you both know, he and the president were cronies in New York, but seem to have fallen out due to the president’s reluctance to appoint Conkling and the president’s lack of support and, indeed, opposition to a number of legislative things Conkling feels strongly about.
“It seems Conkling, Arthur and a man named George Chadwick formed a cotton consortium during the war. They made millions of dollars. On the surface it was good business. But, if it was honest, why were all records about it expunged?
“We have in front of you five pages of records from the Customs House in New York. They are allegedly the only ones left from the cotton consortium records destroyed.
“The pages show five instances of where large cotton sales to merchants in Canada were made without report or any sort of duty, tariff or tax being paid. Each should have specified who was responsible for paying—the sender, the Canadian recipient, or a third party. None is stated. It appears nobody paid anything.
“Now, we doubt Conkling would use this against the president without implicating himself, though as a sharp attorney he might find a loophole.
“However, this is proof alleged misdoings did occur and we think the three principals are culpable.”
The two secretaries were quiet for a moment.
The attorney general took possession of the five sheets and studied them.
“Where did you get these?” he asked, immediately putting the two detectives on the defensive.
“From the man who found or stole them. I bought them for a token amount.”
“Who was this?”
“A source whose identity I promised to protect, sir.”
Brewster thought about her reply for a while.
“Alright. I will accept your position. We cannot prosecute or even publicize this without putting the president in an untenable position. If, at some juncture, he goes off the reservation and an impeachment is underway with which we agree as a point of fact, these will surface. We will revisit their use. If Conkling is impacted negatively, so much the better. He is a very dangerous man and, to me, of dubious character.
“I agree, the cotton deal is something one as canny as Conkling could use to influence Arthur. Don’t you agree, Robert?”
“I do, Ben. I believe this solidifies the case for Conkling being a prime suspect.”
“Sarah went to Scarsdale and looked around. We have not determined a link there with Conkling but will continue to seek one. At this time, we are not putting all of our eggs in Conkling’s basket. We just feel we have validated him as a threat. We will continue pursuing the others and whatever new ones pop up. And will, of course, continue to advise you both right away,” Pope said.
“I am intrigued our detectives located evidence which eluded the ones in New York,” Lincoln said.
“Robert, Conkling runs New York. He is a man who exercises daily, is a boxer himself, and is intimidating even without his henchmen. Nonetheless, Popes, this is good work on the hardening the President’s House and investigation standpoints. Keep it up,” Brewster said.
&nb
sp; Pope and Sarah went to a gun shop and replaced the .38 with a matching one. A hardware store had a six-inch blade Bowie and she bought it to replace the dagger discarded in New York City. Pope bought both weapons. He attracted less attention with the purchases than Sarah would have.
“Where to now on the investigation?” Sarah asked.
“Let’s move to enemies of Arthur’s pro-Chinese and pro-immigration reform efforts. We assume railroads are against the efforts. This may or may not be true. Let’s figure out a way to validate our suspicion or mark it off our list.”
“I think I will go back and visit my friend who is at the Congressional Library, if you could call the crammed together room a library,” Sarah said.
“I’ll look for discussions on the floor of both houses of Congress about immigration and see who is loudest against it. Then, I will try to tie those Senators and Representatives back to the railroads and any other more covert financial supporters they have.”
“Sounds like a fine plan to me! Safer than your last trip, too.”
“I don’t know. The gnome-like little man seems to have taken a fancy to me.”
“Probably heard about your plan to turn the president into a gelding…”
“There is a remote possibility of it happening. It’s made more remote by your increased security.”
“Lincoln told me some interesting history the other day and this is the first time I have had a chance to share it with you,” Pope began.
“It seems a house painter was mad with Andrew Jackson about fifty years ago and shot at him point blank on the Capitol steps. His gun misfired. The old president began beating the living hell out of him with his cane. The man pulled another pistol and it misfired too. Fully enraged, Jackson was beating him senseless until some congressmen pulled him off.”
“My kind of president!” Sarah said.
“There’s another story more germane to our situation. It seems a number of people suspected Conkling was behind the assassination of Garfield at the train station where we arrived in Washington.”
Shooting For Justice Page 4