The Lost Constitution

by William Martin

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  THE LOST CONSTITUTION

  A Book Sense Notable Book

  “The rich historical episodes … tell an engrossing family saga peopled with beautifully drawn characters and set in New England’s mill towns and forests from the days just after the Revolution through the Civil War and into the early twentieth century. Thrilling. Highly recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  “A rocket sled of a ride that will be loved by history buffs, conspiracy nuts, puzzle nerds, and even baseball junkies. After The Lost Constitution, Green Monster will have a whole new meaning for Red Sox fans. William Martin is not just one of America’s finest historians, he is also a storyteller of the first magnitude.”

  —Randy Wayne White, New York Times

  bestselling author of Tampa Burn and Sanibel Flats

  “Martin’s style is perfectly suited to this wedding of multigenerational saga and detective drama.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Smart, witty, terrific storytelling. A great sprawling read. Enjoy!”

  —Allan Folsom, New York Times best selling

  author of The Machiavelli Covenant

  “Intriguing and imaginative.”

  —Visalia Times-Delta

  “A story as old as time yet as current as today’s newspapers. An electrifying novel that crackles in your hands until you white-knuckle the pages and can’t let go.”

  —David Nevin, New York Times bestselling

  author of 1812 and Dream West

  “Anyone even vaguely interested in American history will find The Lost Constitution unputdownable. It’s got everything a reader could ask for: depth, narrative pace, suspense. Best of all, the national charter takes on new meaning. So does the word American.”

  —Thomas Fleming, New York Times bestselling

  author of The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee

  “Well conceived and entertaining while being educational in constitutional issues and what this most important document means or should mean … An engaging and intelligent mystery.”

  —Lexink.com

  “Fascinating, informative, and impeccably set in the northeast American landscape that was the cradle of the Constitution and our country. Martin’s extensive research and suspenseful storytelling skills make for compelling and thought-provoking fiction.”

  —Carole Nelson Douglas, bestselling author

  of the Irene Adler historical suspense novels

  “A well-written fast paced adventure guaranteed to entertain and make you think about what our country stands for.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A good mystery, a better examination of constitutional issues, and a superb paean to New England, its people, natural beauty, and resources.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Weaves mystery, history, politics, and wit into the deadly search for a document stolen in the eighteenth century and worth far more than money in the twenty-first.”

  —Lucia St. Clair Robson, author of Shadow

  Patriots: A Novel of the Revolution

  BOOKS BY WILLIAM MARTIN

  Harvard Yard

  CitizenWashington

  Annapolis

  Cape Cod

  The Rising of the Moon

  Nerve Endings

  Back Bay

  The

  LOST

  CONSTITUTION

  WILLIAM MARTIN

  A Tom Doherty Associates Book

  New York

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE LOST CONSTITUTION

  Copyright © 2007 by William Martin

  All rights reserved.

  A Forge Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4299-1088-0

  ISBN-10: 0-7653-5446-2

  First Edition: May 2007

  First Mass Market Edition: June 2008

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For

  Louise

  and

  Kitty,

  two wonderful mothers

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In a scene early in this novel, Peter Fallon reads the acknowledgments in a book called The Magnificent Dreamers. He skims through the names and thinks, “Requisite stuff, polite and thankful.”

  Well, I hope my acknowledgments have more impact, because they are certainly more than “requisite.” Polite? At the very least. Thankful? Absolutely. Throw in appreciative, grateful, indebted, too.

  Writing any book is a journey, especially one that spans two hundred and twenty years and touches on the history of all six New England states. If not for the people willing to help along the way, the going would be very lonely. Thanks to all of them.

  Start with Peter Drummey, librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, whose fictional counterpart in The Lost Constitution has “a photographic memory for all the manuscripts, books, and artifacts in the collection, no mean talent at a place that had been gathering historical treasures since the end of the Revolution.” It’s true of Peter, too. He is a friend to scholars, researchers, historians, and at least one New England novelist. I decided to write this book following an afternoon spent examining one of the society’s most treasured documents and discussing it with Peter Drummey.

  Others have provided everything from moral support to specific technical information: Jonathan Chu, Thomas Cook, Lou Gorman, Helen Gow, Jeffrey Hollis, Christopher Keane, William Key, William Kuntz, Stephen Martell, Wendell Minor, Ann Rauscher, Martin Weinkle, Robert and Joan Wilson, Sue Zacharias.

  And if writing one of these books is a journey, getting there is half the fun, thanks to the librarians, docents, and park rangers who keep history alive across New England.

  In Vermont: at the St. Albans Historical Museum.

  In New Hampshire: at the American Independence Museum in Exeter; on trails and at shelters maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club; at natural and historical sites across the White Mountain National Forest, Franconia Notch State Park, and Crawford Notch State Park; at the Mount Washington Hotel, where a bygone era lives on.

  In Maine: at the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain House in Brunswick; at the Maine Historical Society in Portland; at the Portland Observatory; at the Museum at Portland Head Light.

  In Massachusetts: at the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham; at Fenway Park; at the Lowell National Historical Park and Boott Cotton Mills Museum; at the Quabbin Reservoir; at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site; at River Bend Farm and other sites up and down the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage
Corridor, which also rolls south into Rhode Island.

  In Rhode Island: at the Slater Mill and Museum in Pawtucket; at the Museum of Newport History; and at the Preservation Society of Newport County, which maintains the mansions.

  In Connecticut: at the Mystic Seaport in Mystic; at the Mark Twain House in Hartford; at various sites across the Litchfield Hills.

  Beyond New England: at the Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Fredericksburg Battlefield Park in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

  As always, thanks to my agent and friend, Robert Gottlieb, who has represented me for over twenty years; to Bob Gleason, my editor at Forge, and his assistant, Eric Raab; and of course to my wife and family, who are ready to offer insights, opinions, and in the case of this book, companionship on the New England hiking trails that led to the vistas that inspired much of this book.

  WILLIAM MARTIN

  December 2006

  PROLOGUE

  “I’M A GOOD AMERICAN.”

  “Sure you are.” Peter Fallon studied the man on the other side of the bulletproof glass.

  “Bein’ in here is just the cost of doin’ business.”

  In here was the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction, formerly known as Walpole State Prison, home to the most felonious citizens in the Commonwealth, or at least the ones who’d been caught.

  “Why did you want to see me?” Peter Fallon didn’t like being in here any more than the prisoners did.

  “Like I say, I’m a good American, and I don’t hold a grudge.”

  “I appreciate that.” Peter also appreciated that they were separated by that glass and talking on telephones.

  Bingo had once been the toughest troublemaker in South Boston. If you wanted to fence stolen property, steal the property to fence, or steal a fence, you saw Bingo. If you wanted to sell controlled substances, from absinthe to OxyContin, you asked Bingo. If you wanted to buy a weapon without a background check, forge a driver’s license, steal Social Security numbers, or do anything else to make money outside the law, you had to tell Bingo.

  People said that even in here, Bingo was calling the shots on the street.

  Peter Fallon was not so sure. Life on the street followed the laws of physics, starting with the one about nature abhorring a vacuum. So some other thug had probably taken over. Besides, Bingo was in his sixties now, once a threatening man who never needed to threaten, always a small man who never seemed small … until they took away his scally cap and cigarettes and gave him a prison suit.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Bingo said, “I thought about sendin’ you some payback. Imagine if the sprinklers went off in that fancy bookshop of yours.”

  “You’re not in here because of me,” answered Peter Fallon. “You’re in here because you killed two people … at least.”

  “Shit happens.”

  “So … why am I here?”

  Bingo looked to his right and his left: a black man in his fifties, a young Hispanic, both talking on telephones to women on Peter’s side of the glass. Bingo turned back to Peter. “What I have is an address.”

  “Address?”

  “Two fourteen Boston Street.”

  “Off Columbia Road?”

  “Right. Dunkin’ Donuts at one end, Dunkin’ Donuts at the other, body shops, some nice three-deckers, a few dumps … If you keep goin’, you go into Southie.”

  “What’s there?”

  Bingo’s eyes shifted again. “Guns.”

  “Guns?”

  “Automatic weapons. Uzis, M-16s. AK clones.”

  “What does that have to do with me? If it’s antique guns, I’m interested. But if somebody’s running guns and you’re mad because you’re not in on it—”

  “Just shut the fuck up and listen.”

  And for the first time, Peter Fallon saw something other than cold confidence in the eyes of Bingo Keegan.

  “I’m a tough guy,” said Bingo, “but there’s guys in here who’d slice me open like a fuckin’ haddock for what I’m gonna tell you.”

  “So why tell me?”

  “Because, like I say, I’m a good American. Anyone sees me talkin’ to you, they’ll think I’m spillin’ the beans about stolen art or somethin’. Nobody in here gives a shit about that.”

  “So … I should pretend you’re telling me who robbed the Gardner Museum twenty years ago?”

  “Sure. Most people think I did it anyway.” Bingo leaned closer to the glass. “Now, there’s two kinds of Muslims, right?”

  Peter shrugged.

  “There’s the good ones and the bad ones.”

  “I suppose.”

  “The good ones, believe it or not, are the Niggers. The Black Muslims. They tell their people to get off welfare and stay in their own neighborhoods and keep the hell out of Southie.”

  Peter didn’t say anything. He knew this was not a debate.

  “The bad Muslims,” Bingo went on, “are the ones who fly planes into buildings and kill thousands of Americans.”

  Peter nodded.

  “Well, one of the good ones in here says that his boys on the outside don’t like what’s been happenin’ in their neighborhood.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s this florist, see. Has a storefront in Up-ham’s Corner. Name is Vartaby. Mo Vartaby.”

  “Black?”

  “No. A fuckin’ Syrian or somethin’. Come to this country about six years ago. Starts a florist business. Everybody likes him. But he goes to this house, this one crummy three-decker in Dorchester, every single day.”

  “So?”

  “All he delivers are roses … boxed fuckin’ roses.”

  “So somebody loves somebody in a crummy three-decker. So what?”

  “The boxes. That’s what. Long and skinny.” Bingo brought his hand to his mouth and his fingers played against his lips, as if he would have loved a cigarette, but no smoking at Cedar Junction.

  “Am I supposed to think there are guns in the boxes?” asked Peter.

  “Start by thinkin’ about this florist’s first name. Mo. Not Larry. Not Curly. Mo.”

  “Mo as in Mohammed?”

  “As in might as well be A-hab the fuckin’ A-rab, for Chrissakes.”

  “And you think he’s bringing guns to that apartment? Why?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s the word on the street, and the word’s usually good. So maybe the FBI should know. And you know people. Right?”

  “Let me get this straight.” Peter leaned closer to the glass. “A florist named Mohammed delivers long boxes in Dorchester, and you want me to call the FBI?”

  “Two fourteen Boston Street.” Bingo hung up and left.

  PETER FALLON CONSIDERED himself a good American, too. And he had a client, a retired FBI agent who collected first editions of Ian Fleming….

  But maybe a drive to Dorchester first.

  He waited until ten thirty at night, when the traffic would be light.

  Boston was having its early June heat wave, so he was happy to get in the BMW, open the moonroof, and cruise.

  This was his town. He had grown up in Southie. He had gone to B.C. High and Harvard. He was a respected dealer in rare books and documents, a board member of three museums, a quarter owner of Red Sox season tickets, and like most Bostonians, a born skeptic. So he had to see for himself just how crummy this three-decker really was.

  He picked up Mass Ave in the Back Bay, went past Symphony Hall, through Roxbury, down to Columbia Road. It was like a ride from the top of Boston’s real estate ladder to the bottom, though real estate prices were so crazy that the bottom here was higher than the top in most towns.

  At Columbia, he took a left onto Boston Street.

  The sodium vapor streetlamps turned everything to hideous orange daylight, so it was easy to see that the mechanic shops and other businesses on the left side of the street were all closed, and strange to see the Clapp house, one of the oldest houses in Boston, sitting on a grass
y knoll, just a dark shadow looking out at all the televisions flickering in the three-deckers across the street.

  Three-deckers had once been called “Boston weeds” because so many had popped up in the early 1900s. Wood-frame structures with balconies, bay windows, three floors for three families, built at that moment when quality material, cheap skilled labor, and mass construction all intersected. Back then they were castles for the common man. Today, the nice ones were urban treasures.

  Number 214 was not one of them. The balcony was drooping. The shingles were curling. The windows were dark.

  Peter slowed but did not stop.

  Across the street, a mongrel dog paced behind the fence of an auto body shop. Two battered cars sat in the lot. Peter thought he noticed someone sitting in one of them. Strange.

  But there was no sign of life in the three-decker, just an old Plymouth minivan parked outside.

  So Peter kept going down to the intersection, pulled into a Dunkin’ Donuts, and bought half a dozen jelly crullers and raised glazed.

  Then he cruised back up the street. Now there was a light on in the cellar. And the dog across the street was still pacing. And it sure looked like someone was sitting in that trashed car.

  Peter decided to keep driving, back to Columbia Road and on to Upham’s Corner.

  This had once been an Irish neighborhood, dominated by St. Kevin’s Parish and St. Margaret’s Hospital. Now the hospital was closed and St. Kevin’s served a population that was lowercase “catholic” as well as upper.

  Peter glanced into the storefronts—a local bank, Sanchez Puerto Rican grocery, a Vietnamese nail salon, a beauty shop with the sign in the window—”Beaded corn rows $5 each.” And there—Vartaby’s Flowers.

  Peter slowed a bit and got a few horn blasts. Columbia Road was four lanes, divided, and people drove fast.

  He couldn’t tell much from a glance into the shop, except that there were lights on in the back room. At eleven o’clock? Most florists went to bed before nine, so they could get to the Flower Exchange by five in the morning. Was Mo Vartaby up late doing his books?