The First Assassin

by John J. Miller

  John Hay handed a clutch of papers to Abraham Lincoln and quit the room. He closed the door, leaving Mazorca alone with the president.

  “Hello,” said Lincoln, who sounded slightly bored. The two men shook hands. Mazorca was struck by the president’s long fingers and firm grip. Lincoln gave Mazorca’s torn-up ear a quick second look, as so many people did. He gestured to a short chair. Mazorca parked himself in it, and the president began to rustle through the material Hay had given him.

  As Lincoln read, Mazorca glanced around the room. The president’s office was functional rather than grand. A modest desk sat in a corner, near one of the room’s two windows and beside a fireplace. Above the mantel was a portrait of Andrew Jackson. The opposite wall displayed a pair of maps. A long table dominated the middle of the room. It was big enough for a cabinet meeting, thought Mazorca. A small lamp rested in its center, amid a mess of documents. A black gas line ran up from the lamp to a modest chandelier above it. Sunlight from the room’s big windows and yellow wallpaper brightened the space. Next to the president, a cord dangled from the ceiling. By pulling on it a minute earlier, Mazorca assumed, the president had rung the bell in the waiting room.

  Lincoln himself was all angles. His knees and elbows made sharp points as he sat with crossed legs, hunched over the papers. His face looked as though an ax had carved it from a block of wood, with jagged edges and severe lines. The deep creases were distinctive but not conventionally handsome. Lincoln’s eyes were a light blue fading into gray, and they sparkled with intelligence from deep sockets. Messy hair and a beard running low along his jaw framed his countenance. Mazorca thought Lincoln was one of the oddest looking men he had ever seen.

  “You have a letter here from your congressman, plus notes from a few of my local supporters.” Lincoln continued shuffling the papers. “One of these men even seems to think that he alone is responsible for my election,” he said, more to himself than his guest. “And now this immodest fellow expects a reward for getting me into this fine fix.” The president emitted a sound that was half grunt and half chuckle. Then he looked at Mazorca. “So, Mr. Collins, tell me why you want to become a lighthouse keeper in New Jersey.”

  Mazorca tried not to look surprised. “Somebody must offer protection against the reefs and shoals.”

  “We must all steer clear of them—ships of sea and ships of state.”

  “Indeed.”

  Lincoln waited for more of a response, but Mazorca did not want to say too much. He had not planned to be in this position, and he did not like to do anything he had not planned. But neither did he want a good plan to get in the way of an excellent opportunity. He knew his assignment required seizing every advantage handed to him. Here was Lincoln, seated before him and ignorant of any personal danger. They were alone.

  At last the president decided to carry on. “Lighthouses have always intrigued me, Mr. Collins. When we see a light shine in the darkness, we are invariably drawn to it, like the proverbial moth and flame. The light attracts us. It invites us to come closer. And yet in the case of lighthouses, the light is often a warning. Its message is to stay away. If we approach, we perish.”

  “It is important to know what things to avoid.”

  Lincoln closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and tilted his head upward. He was trying to remember something.

  “Confess yourself to heaven,” he said. “Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come.”

  He opened his eyes to a blank expression on Mazorca’s face. The president smiled. “Never mind me—just a little Shakespeare. I reread those lines in Hamlet only a few nights ago.”

  An uncomfortable silence settled between the two men. Mazorca assumed that Lincoln had grown accustomed to guests who did nothing but beg favors. “I suppose you wish there were lights to guide you through the darkness now, in these troubled times,” said Mazorca.

  “I surely do,” replied the president. “But I would also want to know whether the lights come from a harbor calling me in or a reef warning me away.”

  “Some things are not as they seem. The trick is to know which is which.”

  Lincoln’s eyes narrowed. “How many legs would a dog have, Mr. Collins, if you called his tail one?”

  Mazorca paused at this riddle. He wanted to say five but knew that could not be the answer. “I’ll guess four, because calling his tail a leg would not make it one.”

  The president smiled. “You are a clever fellow. Most people don’t get that one.”

  “It’s an easy mistake.”

  “A careless one, too. It reminds me of a story. One day, a farmer was working around his property when his son—a boy of about ten years—came rushing up to him. ‘Pa,’ he shouted, full of excitement, ‘come quick! The hired man and sis are in the barn, up in the hayloft. He’s pullin’ down his pants and she’s liftin’ up her skirt!’”

  Lincoln paused, barely able to suppress a big grin. It appeared as though he had told this story many times and took delight in watching it fall on fresh ears.

  “‘Pa,’” continued Lincoln, in the earnest voice of the boy, “‘they’re gonna pee all over our hay!’”

  Lincoln howled at this line, doubling over in his seat. As the president wiped an eye with his sleeve, Mazorca smiled politely and tapped his foot. He felt the holster strapped to his calf. The possibilities buzzed through his mind. All he would have to do was pull up his pant leg and remove the gun. He had thought the deed might be accomplished from a distance, with a rifle. Now he wondered if it could be done up close. It would be easy, unbelievably easy. But then, this was always the easy part. The hard part was the escape.

  Mazorca found himself enormously tempted to take advantage of this extraordinary moment. He looked at the window but knew from his earlier observations that the drop to the ground was too far. He would probably break a leg, or worse. The sound of the shot would set off an alarm through the whole house, too. Hay would burst in immediately, followed by the men waiting in line in the other room. Some of them were sure to have weapons. Mazorca thought he might hold them off for a moment with his pistol, but he knew a gunfight was not in his interests. Scores of Lane’s men would swarm the White House and its grounds in seconds. They would spot a man running across the south lawn and begin a chase—and a chase was the thing he most wanted to avoid. The way to escape after killing a target was not to become a target right afterwards. That meant creating uncertainty about where the shot came from and who pulled the trigger. Ideally, he would walk away calmly from the scene of an assassination.

  “I have received several other inquiries about lighthouses in New Jersey,” said Lincoln, when he finally stopped laughing. “You are by no means the first and may not be the last. I have not made any decisions yet and will give your request full consideration.”

  Mazorca realized he was being released from the interview, but he wanted this bizarre meeting to continue. He nodded at the portrait of Jackson. “I did not take you to be an admirer of his.”

  “Doubt my credentials, do you?” smiled the president. “I thought doubting credentials was my job.” He gave a short laugh, a high-pitched hee-haw, and looked at the picture.

  “Many people assume that a Republican like me wouldn’t hang his picture. It was here when I moved in—a remnant of the previous administration. I had hoped it might bring me some success in my own dealings with South Carolina. I suppose that’s what Mr. Buchanan wanted too. It didn’t help either of us much, did it? President Jackson had a little more luck with that state than we did.”

  Lincoln paused for a moment and made eye contact with Mazorca, who sat motionless. “It does remind me of another story, which comes from that old revolutionary war hero Ethan Allen. Do you have time for a short one?”

  Mazorca nodded his approval. Sometimes a fruit appearing ripe on the outside could be rotten on the first bite. He decided to let Lincoln survive this accidental encounter. Their next meeting would be different.

  “Allen was visi
ting England, sometime after our country had secured its independence,” said Lincoln. “His hosts enjoyed poking fun at Americans, so they put a picture of George Washington in the most undignified place they could imagine—the back room, you know, where they kept the toilet. They could hardly wait for their guest to see the picture and were delighted when Allen excused himself for a moment. His hosts were bursting with anticipation while he was away, and they guessed at what Allen might do or say when he returned. They were startled, though, when Allen came back in with a huge grin on his face. He did not appear even mildly annoyed. One of his hosts finally asked, ‘What did you think of the décor?’ And Allen replied, ‘Very appropriate. In fact, I cannot think of a better place for an Englishman to hang a picture of General Washington than above the can.’ The reply confused everybody, so the host asked, ‘Why is that?’ And Allen replied, ‘Because there is nothing in the world except the sight of General Washington that will make an Englishman so quick to shit!’”

  Lincoln roared at the punch line, slapped his knee, and rose from his seat. Mazorca did not quite grasp the point of the story, but he stood up too and understood he was being dismissed for good. Maybe that was the point.

  Lincoln put a hand on his shoulder as they walked to the door. “You are a man of few words, Mr. Collins. That is probably a good quality in someone seeking out the loneliness of lighthouse work. You also seem to have a talent for riddles. I’ll see what I can do for you. Good day.”

  Looking out the window for Hughes and Tate made Bennett feel helpless. Years ago, he would have led the pursuit of Portia and Joe. Now, every glance made him tense. This was no pursuit of ordinary fugitives. Portia and Joe had something in their possession that he desperately wanted to have returned.

  Bennett tried to reason his way out his anxiety. The odds of these two slaves making it all the way to Washington were incredibly low. Even if they did make it, they might not arrive in time. Mazorca would strike at some point. Bennett did not know when or how, but he knew it would happen. Anything the slaves did after that would come too late. And even if by some miracle they made it to Washington and also made it in time to interfere with Mazorca, there was the very distinct possibility that nobody would take them seriously. They would have to convince the right people in government that their photograph contained important information. Yet they were nothing but a pair of runaway slaves who could not even write their names on a scrap of paper.

  It was early in the afternoon, following a small lunch he had eaten alone in the dining room, when Bennett finally saw something. In the distance, a man on a horse turned onto the path leading up the manor. Behind him were three horses without riders. Was that Tate?

  Bennett walked onto the porch. He saw that it definitely was his overseer. But why was Tate by himself? Where was Hughes? What was that big sack draped across the back of a horse? Its shape and size troubled him. His mood darkened as Tate approached the steps and stopped.

  “What is going on here, Mr. Tate? Where is Mr. Hughes?”

  “I have some very bad news to report, Mr. Bennett.” Tate explained what had happened.

  When he was done, Bennett summarized what he had just heard: “So Hughes is hurt, Joe is dead, and Portia is missing. I presume this is Joe’s body you have here?”

  “I thought we should bury it here at the plantation.”

  “Remove the body from the horse immediately and put it on the ground right here.”

  “I thought I would take it directly to the slave cemetery, sir, and gather Joe’s relations for a quick funeral. We really should get this body in the ground soon.”

  “Did you hear me, Mr. Tate?” yelled Bennett. “Do it now.”

  Tate was baffled by the request, but he and a slave lowered the body to the ground. The stiffness made it difficult to manipulate.

  “Remove the wrappings,” commanded Bennett.

  They uncovered Joe’s corpse. Its skin had assumed an ugly gray pallor. The stench was strong. Tate took a step back.

  “Search the clothes.”

  Tate was puzzled. “What am I looking for?”

  “Just do it!”

  The overseer knelt beside the corpse and began patting it. He stuck his hand in the pant pockets. From one he removed the crumbled remains of a biscuit. In another he found a small slingshot and several round stones. He placed these beside the body.

  “Take them off.”

  “Sir?”

  “The clothes. Remove them from his body. I want them thoroughly searched.”

  Tate did not move right away. He considered this a strange request. “It would help to know what you’re looking for,” he said.

  “I know what I am looking for, and I will recognize it when I see it. That is all you need to know.”

  Tate began to take off the clothes, piece by piece. The shirt was the hardest to remove, having become crusty with dried blood. The whole experience was humiliating. Tate not only resented having to perform this indecent chore. He also resented having to do it where a number of slaves could see him. This is a story that will spread fast, he thought. He worried about what this desecration would do to his reputation around the farm. Certainly it would not make things any easier for him.

  When Joe’s naked body lay exposed before Bennett and it was clear that no more searching could be done, Tate looked up at his boss. “Will that be all, sir?”

  “Damn it, Tate. He does not have what I want. You should have followed Portia.”

  Bennett stormed up the steps to the manor. The door slammed shut behind him with a loud bang.

  Nobody had moved from the scene. Tate took command. He ordered a slave to lead all but one of the horses to the stables. He told two others to dress Joe again, wrap him up, and put him on the back of the remaining horse. He sent a final slave to fetch a few shovels. When the body bag was in place and the shovels in everybody’s hands, Tate took the reins of the horse and began to walk to the slave cemetery. This was on the edge of Bennett’s property near the road. It was a fairly large section of land, having been in use for several generations. The graves were unmarked.

  The most direct route from the manor required Tate to walk by the slave quarters. As he approached them, a crowd began to gather. They whispered among themselves. Before anybody called out to ask what had happened, Sally appeared on the scene. When she saw Tate, she dropped the pot she had been holding. It cracked when it hit the ground. Soup sprayed everywhere. She ran toward Tate. “Oh Lord, don’t let it be true,” she screamed. “Please don’t let it be true.”

  But it was true. Joe had come home, and he would never leave again.

  The cat startled Violet Grenier when it jumped onto her desk. She rubbed the black-and-white animal behind its ears, listening to it purr. “That’s a good boy, Calhoun,” she said, in a baby-talk voice. The cat was named after John Calhoun, the South Carolina politician who had served as a vice president, a cabinet officer, and a senator. He had died a decade earlier and since then had achieved an iconic status among Southern partisans. When the cat made an appearance at one of her parties, Grenier loved to tell her guests its name. She especially enjoyed teasing Northerners who stroked its fur. “See how easy it is to please him?” she would say. “That’s what I like about cats. They demand so little—just a bit of freedom.”

  At the thought of this barbed comment, Grenier smiled and leaned back in her chair. She felt a cramp in her back and realized that she had been sitting for too long. It was time to take a break. She set down her pen and rose from the seat where she had composed letters for much of the afternoon. The most important of these letters had been the most difficult to write. She had saved it for last because she was unsure of what to say.

  The adventure of the previous night, when she had followed the soldiers and their prisoners to the Treasury Department, had left her confused. One plot was now foiled. This was no loss. Yet she wondered exactly how it had been defeated. How much of the conspiracy was compromised? Would the prisoners t
alk to their captors? How much would they say? Would her acquaintance in New York become exposed? Would she find herself implicated?

  If they mentioned visiting her, she could expect to face difficult questions. She could deny knowing them, or at least deny knowing their plans. The fact that she was a woman could prove advantageous—the chivalry of her interrogators might coax them into believing her professions of total innocence. She could confess to holding the Southern sympathies for which she was already well known. “But no lady in my position would associate herself with the schemes of ruffians,” she said grandly, as if practicing for the occasion. Calhoun looked up at her and meowed. “I’m glad you approve,” she said. She stroked his neck.

  Her wiles might help, but Grenier appreciated that perhaps she was falling into some danger. What were her choices? Leaving Washington was an option, though one she did not want to take. She was needed here. A man could put on a uniform and fight in a battle. Grenier knew that wars were not always won by strength of arms. Generals needed reliable information almost as much as their troops needed ammunition—and Grenier understood that she was in a unique position to provide information about federal activity that perhaps nobody else could obtain. Men were willing to die defending the rights of the South. Grenier was determined to help them win in any way she could. This cause was bigger than any man—or any woman.

  A Bible rested on her desk, propped open to Matthew. It helped her compose her letter to New York: “A stranger recently told me that ‘Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction,’” she had written. “Success, however, is a strait gate—and the one he had hoped to pass through is now shut.” She thought perhaps it said enough without saying too much. It would mean little to anyone but its recipient, and to him it would convey an important piece of news. How he used this information would be his own concern. For her part, Grenier felt that he at least deserved to possess it.

  She tucked the letter into an envelope and sealed it. Her thoughts turned to Mazorca, as they had done so many times since the day before. She had given herself to him freely—something she had not done with a man in quite a while. Her trysts always involved some kind of transaction, as she sought to extract a fact or obtain a favor. Mazorca was different. She had wanted nothing from him but the pleasure of his company, and she indeed had found it pleasurable.