The First Assassin

by John J. Miller

  Rook kept looking across the street. He and the other watchers would have seen anybody who stood beside one of the windows or passed by it. The only exception was Mazorca’s room, where the curtains were shut. They were open everywhere else.

  Why were his closed? The day before, when Rook was in the room, they had been left slightly open. The only time Rook had ever closed a curtain in the middle of the day was to sleep. If Mazorca was dozing, he might be secured without a fight.

  Rook mulled it over and decided to act on what his gut was telling him to do. “We’re done waiting,” he said. “Let’s go in.”

  Polly brightened when the soldier waved to her on Pennsylvania Avenue, outside Willard’s Hotel. She might have worked for Violet Grenier, who could say all kinds of terrible things about federal men, but Polly rather liked how they looked in their blue uniforms. The idea that one of them had actually noticed her made her heart beat a little faster.

  “Hello, ma’am,” said the soldier, a private who was about Polly’s age.

  Polly smiled coyly. “Hello,” she replied.

  “May I show you something?” He held out a card.

  It was a peculiar approach, but she had no intention of complaining. She took the card and realized that it was not a card at all but rather a photograph. Polly owned several about the same size. They were mostly pictures of handsome actors who toured the country and occasionally came to Washington.

  The image was not sharp. Polly could tell it had not been taken in a studio. It certainly did not appear posed. A man was in the center of it, viewed in profile. His ear was disfigured. It did not make him ugly, but he sure was not as fine looking as the men Polly had admired from the balcony at Ford’s Theatre.

  “Have you seen this man?” asked the private.

  Disappointment washed over her. The soldier was not interested in her but in what she might know. This was not a casual rendezvous. That was all right, she realized, because he was not as handsome as her favorite actors either.

  She looked down at the picture again. “No, I’m afraid not.” She tried to hand it back to him.

  “Keep it,” he said. “I’ve got a whole stack, and I’m supposed to get rid of them all.” Polly saw that he held about a hundred of them in his other hand. “Take it back home. Anybody who has seen this man should report to the Winder Building as quickly as possible. He may be dangerous.”

  “Okay,” said Polly. She tucked away the photo. “You be careful,” she said as she walked away.

  “Yes, ma’am. I will,” said the private. He winked at her and smiled.

  Polly decided that he was not bad looking after all. She would have to find an excuse to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue again soon.

  In the middle of a weekday afternoon, H Street did not exactly hum with activity—and Rook waited until it was positively deserted before he crossed it from the apothecary’s shop. Six uniformed soldiers followed him, and they made directly for Tabard’s boardinghouse. Anybody watching them would have understood that it was not a social visit.

  The door to Tabard’s was unlocked. Rook pushed it open, removing a pistol from his holster at the same time. The soldiers gripped their own guns. Even though H Street was empty, they had not wanted to draw their weapons until they were actually entering the building. To their backs, above the apothecary’s shop, a pair of soldiers leaned out of a third-story window and aimed their Sharps rifles. Several other soldiers were positioned at the intersections of Sixth and Seventh streets, and a few more guarded the alley in the rear. The boardinghouse was surrounded by armed men.

  The door swung open. The foyer was vacant except for a rug on the floor and a few small pieces of furniture pushed against a wall. Rook stepped inside and made straight for the staircase, without even a glance at the other rooms on the ground floor. This time, he did not bother with the key in the kitchen. There was nothing surreptitious about what he planned to do. Behind him, three soldiers spread out on the first floor. The other three went up the steps with him.

  On the second floor, Rook positioned himself outside of Mazorca’s room. He pressed his ear to the door and listened. No sounds came from within. All was silence except for the rustlings of the soldiers below as they moved around the first floor’s dining room, kitchen, and Tabard’s personal quarters. They were trying to keep quiet, but Rook could hear their muffled footfalls. They had orders to conduct a thorough search, opening closet doors, checking pantries, and looking beneath and behind curtains and anything else that might hide a person who did not want to be found.

  When Rook heard one of them coming up the steps, he finally pulled away from Mazorca’s door. The soldier looked at Rook and shook his head to indicate that they had found nobody. A moment later, a soldier who had gone upstairs came back down with the same report: the common areas were free of people.

  With his pistol still in hand, Rook reached for the knob on Mazorca’s door and gently tried to turn it. The thing refused to budge. The colonel took a step back, squared himself to the door, raised a leg, and kicked. The sole of his black boot crashed into the door, ripping its latch and flinging it open. His gun entered the room before he did, ready to fire upon anybody who wanted to put up a fight.

  The light inside was dim. What illumination there was came from the edges of the closed curtains. He scanned the room rapidly, his head jerking around like a bird as it tried to spot predators. On the bed, a blanket covered a lump the size of a body. Rook had hoped to catch Mazorca napping. Yet he knew that nobody could have slept through the sound of the door smashing in.

  The soldiers swarmed in after Rook. One of them opened the curtains. As light fell on the bed, Rook saw the dark stain. He leaned in for a closer look. It was red and fresh. One whiff and Rook knew it was blood. The body was a corpse.

  The blanket was not tucked in. Instead, it had been tossed on top of the body in haste. Beneath it was Tabard. She lay on her right side, but her head was twisted unnaturally to the left. Her chin rested on her shoulder, and her face looked up at the ceiling. Her eyes were wide open. If it had not been for the huge gash in her neck, Rook might have thought that she was still alive. He could tell that she had not been dead for long. The blood glistened in the sunlight. It had soaked into everything—the blanket, the mattress, her clothes. Rook had seen men die in battle before. It always amazed him to see how many buckets of blood could fill a human body.

  He pulled back. “Mazorca did this,” he said to nobody in particular. “And we don’t know where he is.”

  He told the soldiers to clear the entire building—to open all of the doors that were closed, to investigate the guest rooms, and even to check the roof. Rook’s own attention turned to the trunk. He opened it and reached in. To his mild surprise, the rifle was still there, exactly as it had been before. Rook wondered why an assassin would leave behind his weapon.

  Rook descended the steps onto the ground floor. From above, he heard knocking on doors, and then the bangs and cracks of forced openings. Yet he was not really listening. He walked into the dining room, passed through the kitchen, and entered Tabard’s bedroom.

  It was small and neat—the private chamber of a woman whose life had revolved around her guests. Rook imagined Tabard coming in here at the end of each day, worn out from hours of cooking, cleaning, and conversing, and collapsing into the cool sheets of her bed.

  Across the room, a closet stood wide open. It appeared as though someone had ransacked its contents. A few dresses hung from a rack, but several others lay in a heap on the floor. Rook called for the soldier who had entered it just a few moments earlier. When he appeared, Rook pointed to the closet.

  “Did you do this?” he asked.

  “No, sir. I found it like this.”

  “Right,” said the colonel. “At least it’s one mess we aren’t responsible for.”

  It was exactly as Rook had feared: his men had arrived in time to capture Mazorca, but Mazorca had outwitted them. Their failure to act sooner or more inte
lligently had cost Tabard her life—and now it might cost the president as well. They had gone from having the assassin within their grasp to having no clue about where he might have gone. He could be anywhere.

  The colonel walked outside the boardinghouse. When he realized that he was still holding his pistol, he holstered it. Across the street, the sharpshooters were gone from the windows. A few other soldiers, sensing that something had gone wrong, made their way toward Tabard’s from their posts. Rook knew that he would have to explain the events of the last few minutes and issue new orders. He would have several men gather whatever information they could from Mazorca’s room, tell the boarders half-truths about why the doors to their rooms were smashed in and their landlady was dead, and question them in detail about Mazorca.

  Those were the easy orders to give. The hard ones involved figuring out how to find Mazorca again. Rook wanted time to think about it. He wished he could talk to Springfield, who had been his confidant on these matters for weeks.

  Just then, Springfield appeared from a block away. When he saw Rook, he broke into a sprint. He stopped in front of the colonel, panting from exhaustion and excitement. “You won’t believe whose letter I found in Grenier’s mail just now,” he said. He held out a piece of paper.

  Mazorca rubbed a hand against his cheek and felt the scratchy stubble of a new beard. He tugged on the shawl wrapped over his head, hoping to cover more of his face, but it was already pulled tight. The whiskers growing on his chin and jaw were pale in color and so not as immediately obvious as they would have been if he were brown-or black-haired. Yet anybody taking a look at his face probably would notice them. His disguise was not going to work for long. He knew that he needed to avoid eye contact and conversation. And that meant getting out of Center Market, where the crowds would swell as government clerks left their jobs for the day.

  For now, however, the disguise would suffice. Mazorca was glad that Tabard had been a large woman. Her closet was full of clothes that fit him comfortably. Most were plain, which was to Mazorca’s liking. He had chosen a dull gray dress that seemed especially ordinary. The fact that it was a little smudgy on its sleeves and slightly frayed at its bottom probably added to its authenticity. To the typical passerby who paid no special heed, Mazorca appeared as a woman who was trying to run errands and keep to herself.

  Killing Tabard had been an unfortunate necessity, thought Mazorca. She was not guilty of a penetrating insight, like Calthrop, though there was the question of the missing letter. If Tabard had played a role in its disappearance, she probably would not have told him to look for it under his door. This seemed like a safe assumption. When Mazorca spotted the man with an unusual level of interest in the boardinghouse, however, even the safest assumptions seemed to have their risky elements. Mazorca needed to escape quickly. The idea of using Tabard’s clothes as a disguise came to him immediately. He killed her because he wanted to move with speed, plus there was the possibility that she might say something unhelpful to his pursuers.

  Mazorca did not regret the murder. He did not care whether Tabard lived or died. The inconvenience of having to silence her merely annoyed him. Her blood was splattered on the clothes he wore beneath the dress, and they would need replacing. The fact that he had not planned on her murder, however, distressed him. His plans were swerving off course. The government’s security apparatus was onto him. He was no longer in total control.

  Mazorca realized what a close call he had just been through. Agents were watching the boardinghouse. They had put a tail on him when he left. Fortunately for him, the tail was inept. Mazorca had spotted him almost immediately, saw him again in the reflection of a storefront window, and then watched him try to board the omnibus at the last possible moment. Just as he had gotten on, Mazorca had gotten off, slipping out from the rear of the vehicle. Then he had crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and darted into Center Market.

  Now he wandered among the farmers and fishmongers. Their prices were rising, owing to the city’s nervousness about its immediate future. The local cost of food was far from his mind. His real purpose in visiting Center Market was to confirm that nobody else was following him. After half an hour of maneuvering, he was convinced that he had escaped. Now he needed to get out of Center Market and out of Tabard’s garments.

  As Mazorca stepped outside, the sky was clear and the temperature was comfortably cool. He immediately noticed that quite a few people were standing along the Avenue, looking toward the Capitol as if in anticipation of something. The crowd thickened as others streamed out of buildings and lined the street. Mazorca had wanted to cross, but he decided to wait. A woman standing nearby spoke to a companion with excitement. “It’s the Seventh! It’s finally here!” Everyone seemed to be pointing and chattering. From a few blocks away came the sound of music and cheers.

  A long column of soldiers marched toward the White House, complete with a band. Mazorca kept his shawl pulled and his head down, so he did not see much of the procession. But he learned that this was New York’s Seventh Regiment. It had come into the train station following a difficult and delayed journey by train and ship. The soldiers had traveled through Annapolis to avoid another violent reception in Baltimore. “There must be a thousand of them!” said one awestruck spectator. “Abe Lincoln will love the sight of this,” said another. “At last, we’re safe!”

  Mazorca listened and waited. As the troops strutted by, many in the crowd fell in behind them, on their way to what they imagined would be an enthusiastic reception at the White House. The president was sure to come out and say a few words expressing his gratitude and relief.

  When the numbers thinned and the Avenue returned to normal, Mazorca moved on. He would skip the grand affair with Lincoln. His own appointment with the president would come soon enough. He would make sure of that.

  Violet Grenier closed her book when Polly walked through the front door. The girl launched into a story about a soldier and a photograph. “He said this man is very dangerous and requested that I show this picture to everyone I know.”

  Her earnestness amused Grenier. “Well, you had better let me see it,” she said.

  Polly came over to where Grenier was sitting and handed her the photograph. A look of astonishment must have crossed Grenier’s face, because Polly immediately sensed what Grenier knew. “Do you recognize him?” she asked in a mix of excitement and fear.

  At first, Grenier was speechless. It was clearly Mazorca. How in the world had Polly obtained a photograph of him?

  “Where did you get this?” she asked, making Polly repeat her story. This time, Grenier peppered her with questions about precisely what the soldier had said to her.

  When she was done, Polly narrowed her eyes. “Who is he?”

  “I have no idea,” lied Grenier. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  Polly was suspicious. She did not dare contradict the woman who employed her. Yet she sensed that Grenier was hiding something.

  “Have you seen him, Polly?” asked Grenier.

  “Me? Oh, good heavens, no. I have not.”

  “Are you sure?” Grenier’s voice was heavy with doubt.

  “Never—I swear it,” said Polly, nervously. “I’m just trying to do what the soldier asked. That’s all.”

  The girl was flustered, which was just how Grenier wanted her.

  “Okay, Polly. That’s fine. If this man is dangerous, then we need to be very careful. I’m going to keep this picture. I’d like you to clean the white chair in the guest room. Calhoun has been napping on it again, and he’s left it covered in fur. And you might dust the room while you’re in there.”

  Grenier watched her go. She had done a poor job of masking her surprise but believed she had recovered adequately.

  She looked at the image again, hoping it would somehow look different and contradict her first impression. Yet she grew even more certain that the picture was of Mazorca.

  This was very bad news.

  Rook heard Scott before he s
aw him. The big general’s hearty laugh boomed through the Winder Building as he made his way to his office, where Rook was waiting for him.

  “A glorious day!” roared the commander of the army. Rook stood up as Scott entered the room in full military regalia. An enormous, plumed chapeau sat on his head, making him seem even taller than his six foot four and one-quarter inches. His uniform was a crisp blue, with golden epaulettes strapped to his shoulders, their fancy fringes dangling down. A sword was fastened to his belt. Shiny black boots completed the outfit.

  Rook never had cared for the pomp and circumstance of the military, but he had to admit that whereas another man might have looked ridiculous, Scott looked majestic. He was fat and old and never would use that sword, or possibly any weapon, in a real battle again. Yet he inhabited his flamboyant costume as perhaps no other American could.

  Two other men came into the room behind him. The first was Locke, the general’s ever-present shadow. He was trying to look his best too. His uniform was clean and crisp and its buttons shone. Rook thought he looked more prepared for the intrigues of a ballroom than the ferocity of a firefight. Scott could dress up and still look like a soldier, but not Locke. The second man was Seward, who seemed to be lurking around constantly these days.

  “Colonel!” bellowed Scott when he saw Rook. It was both an announcement of surprise and a greeting. The general removed his hat and set it on a peg. “Did you see that marvelous procession?”

  Rook knew that he was referring to the arrival of the Seventh Regiment from New York—he had heard the commotion and learned the full story of the regiment’s sudden appearance from a lieutenant just a few minutes earlier. The influx of a thousand fresh men meant that Washington at last was ready for a fight. Lincoln and members of his cabinet, plus Scott and many of his officers, had come out for an impromptu rally.