“He knows the answer,” said Peter. “He must realize by now that his ‘security’ man was eliminating everyone who knew the story of his draft, or was close to finding the real one.”
“You mean, like us?” she asked.
“If there had been a third shot, it was aimed at me. I’d read the original.”
“Why didn’t he kill us when he had the chance?”
“In Newport? When he flattened our tires? When he took you for a ride? I think he was trying to gauge what we knew. Maybe he didn’t because he liked your ass.” Peter gave her a silly grin. “I can say that because I’m on Demerol.”
“I told him I liked his photographs. I said I’d send a few to my publisher if he was interested…. Funny, but he had a certain charm about him.”
“Yeah,” said Peter. “So did Ted Bundy.”
“Do you think we have to worry about him?”
“FBI doesn’t. They expect that he’s split with Cottle for parts unknown.”
“Are you going to blow Jarvis’s cover?”
“I’m going to tell the world that John Langdon was adamant about a ‘separation of church and state’ clause in his notes. Even if we never recover the first draft, people will believe that I know what I’m talking about.”
“After that speech, they’ll want you to run for Congress.”
“No thanks.”
Now Harriet Holden was in front of the cameras in Washington. “Today, we begin our hearings, as scheduled. I have no intention of allowing the actions of a few thugs to keep me from America’s work, and I think that last night we all saw what firearms can do.”
“You go, girl,” said Evangeline.
“Yeah,” said Peter. “Go and read the Constitution.”
“My bet,” said Evangeline. “The repeal is ratified. She’s earned her stripes. The public will get behind her.”
Peter put out his hand. “I bet that the repeal doesn’t make it out of committee.”
“How much?” she asked.
“How about … if I win, you marry me. If you win, I marry you.”
Evangeline brought her face close to his ear and whispered. “You know, we tried living together.”
“So let’s try it again. The righties are always bragging about family values. How about showin’ them a few?”
“That better not be the Demerol talking.”
He insisted it wasn’t, but it put him to sleep when the nurse delivered another shot around ten o’clock. So Evangeline slipped out. She had an article to write.
At lunch time, Orson, Bernice, Danny, and Antoine visited Peter.
Danny told him that he did a fine job on television.
“Yes,” said Orson, “but he looks terrible in red turtlenecks.”
Antoine said that he had to work on his hand-to-hand skills if they were going to get into any more action like that, because Don Cottle was tough.
Bernice said, “I wish you’d called on me, boss. You could have used my Beretta. You might still need it if that assassin guy comes back.”
“He blew his cover last night,” said Peter. “It was his last move.”
“Yeah,” said Danny. “He probably killed Cottle, or Cottle killed him.”
THAT WAS NOT true.
By morning, Stanley and Cottle had driven to Cleveland, where they bought two round-trip tickets for Vancouver, using false IDs.
Two days later, they would sell the priceless document for ten million dollars to an oil-rich collector in Indonesia.
Don Cottle would never be heard from again, though several wire transfers would be made from a numbered Swiss bank account over the next few years.
Walter Stanley’s name would disppear. But those who needed his services would know how to get in touch with him. And his services were valued because he always completed a job, except for one. His contract with Clinton Jarvis had been to eliminate everyone who might bring the Jarvis forgery into question. So he had started with the forger. Then he had worked his way along the chain. The last two threats had been Marlon Secourt himself, who talked too much because he drank too much, and Peter Fallon.
FALLON’S FRIENDS STAYED for an hour, and his son called from school at Berkeley, too.
Twice Danny commented on the good care. “That doctor comes by and checks your chart every twenty minutes or so.”
“Yeah,” said Peter. “Doctors, nurses. It’s constant. Didn’t get any sleep last night. Once the swelling goes down, they’ll put a rod in my leg. Then I’ll be back to work.”
His “family” left when Agents Hause and Luzier came to take his statement, stayed briefly, and left.
Then he needed another Demerol shot, which was followed by that pleasant floating feeling, then a burning in his eyes, then he felt like he was tipping back, then he forgot all the pain and, yes, took a little nap.
He didn’t notice when the doctor came back to check the chart on the door again. This time, the doctor came into the room.
Peter woke when he felt a hand take his arm, a finger tap on the vein, then tap again. “Wha … I just got my shot.”
“Relax. I’m the doctor.”
“Doctor Who?”
“Yes.”
“Doctor Who?” Peter laughed. He felt drunk. “Who’s on first?”
There was a gentle tap on the door.
“Wait just a moment,” said the doctor.
“Yeah,” slurred Peter. “I need another shot.”
The doctor brought the syringe toward his arm.
“Hey,” said Peter. “That thing’s huge. You givin’ me a shot or bastin’ me?”
“Lie still.”
Then Peter pulled his arm away. “Where’s my alcohol rub? You’re subbose to rub my skin with alcohol. Hey … do I know you? Doctor Who? Who’s on first? What’s on second?”
“No.”
“I don’t give a damn’s on third.” Peter squinted through those burning eyes. The doctor was small, compact, like a coiled spring, short gray crew cut. Familiar … but a mustache. Peter said, “Doctor Who? Doctor Jarvis?”
He tried to shout it, but Jarvis put a hand over his mouth. Then the big syringe was coming straight at him … straight for his neck….
He flailed with his left hand, but he was weak, and drugged. He pounded the side of Jarvis’s face and screamed against Jarvis’s hand and didn’t think anybody heard him.
He pushed the syringe away, and Jarvis jammed his knee into Fallon’s chest.
Then the door banged open.
And a flower vase—filled with flowers—flew across the room, hitting Jarvis off the side of the head.
This was followed by two hurtling bodies.
Kelly Cutter and Kate Morgan vaulted into the room.
One hit him high, one hit him low, and both of them landed on Peter’s leg.
He screamed.
Jarvis slammed Kelly against the wall and flung Kate toward the window.
Kate cried, “The buzzer! Peter, press the buzzer!”
Peter fumbled drunkenly in the bedclothes. Kelly called for help.
And help was coming—an orderly first, followed by a nurse, then another orderly.
As they poured into the room, knees flew, and orderlies, too. Jarvis was fighting his way out, until Kate Morgan came up with Peter’s bedpan and slammed him on the back of the head.
Before he came to, they had strapped him to a gurney.
“Clinton D. Jarvis,” said Kelly, “might just turn me into an independent.”
“That’ll be the day.” Kate picked up the syringe, squirted a little into a cup, smelled. “Drāno.”
“Use it to clear the pipes,” said Peter, who was already going loopy after another shot. “Go to the Republican National Committee and the DNC and dump it down all the drains.”
THE RED SOX won the Series.
And the repeal amendment died in committee.
So Peter won his bet.
On a sleeting Saturday in early December, he and Evangeline spent the a
fternoon in his condo, before a fire, and made wedding plans.
Marriage in Boston … honeymoon … where?
“Some place in the States,” said Peter.
“Why?”
“Because we’re good Americans. We’ve listened to all the opinions on both sides. And we’ve done our best to find the truth. That makes us good Americans.”
“Good Americans … like all those Pikes back there?”
“Most of them,” said Peter. “A family of dreamers. Maybe even magnificent dreamers. Good Americans, too, like us.”
“But from now on, these good Americans”—she pointed to him and then to herself—”don’t go looking for trouble. No more dangerous stuff.”
“From now on, we follow the Will Pike recipe,” said Peter. “We might be dreamers, but we have to be doers, too. So we get up in the morning, we go to work, and we solve our problems.”
Later, while Evangeline read Entertainment Weekly about the movies they would go to once Peter could walk out in a crowd, he checked his e-mails.
Something had arrived from a friend in Paris. And before long, he was reading snippets aloud…. “You see, there is a fabulously illuminated thirteenth-century manuscript….” He scanned ahead to the words jumping out: “French Revolution … the monastery at Mont St. Michel … the American invasion of Normandy and the ferocious 1944 battle of St. Lô … a book that may hold the key to … What?”
“Peter,” she said, “I don’t like that look in your eye.”
“How about a honeymoon in France?”
Read on for a preview of
The Lincoln Letter
William Martin
Available in August 2012 by Tom Doherty Associates
A Forge Hardcover ISBN 978-0-7653-2198-5
Copyright © 2012 by William Martin
Prologue
On the last day of his life, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter. If he was angry, anger did not reveal itself in his handwriting, which was typically clean and open. If he was euphoric, and those who observed him that day attested later that he was, euphoria did not express itself either.
The letter lacked the poetry of his best speeches and demonstrated none of the cold and relentless logic of his political writing.
It was as simple, direct, and as blunt as a cannonball:
Dear Lieutenant Hutchinson,
It comes to my attention that you are still alive. This means that you may still be in possession of something that I believe fell into your hands in the telegraph office three years ago. It would be best if you returned it, considering its potential to alter opinions regarding the difficulties just ended and those that lie ahead. If you do, a presidential pardon will be considered.
A. Lincoln.
Lincoln did not inform his secretary about the letter.
It was unlikely that he wanted questions regarding correspondence with an officer who had served not only in the field but also in the War Department telegraph office, before coming into significant personal difficulty.
It would also have appeared strange that Lincoln did not address the letter to Lieutenant Hutchinson. He sent it instead to Private Jeremiah Murphy at the Armory Square Hospital on Seventh Street.
But even a president had his secrets.
Lincoln sealed the letter and slipped it into a pile of outgoing correspondence, some to be mailed, some to be hand delivered around the city.
It was just after eight when his wife appeared in the doorway to his office, where he was finishing a chat with a congressman. She was wearing a white dress with black stripes and a bonnet adorned with pink silk flowers. She had always favored flowers. But she had worn them less and less in the last four years. No woman who had lost a son and two half brothers, no woman who had watched her husband grow old under history’s heaviest burden, would be inclined to wear anything but black. Still, flowers and dress did nothing to soften her voice. “Mr. Lincoln, would you have us be late?”
He said, “Tonight, we shall laugh.”
Then he called for his carriage, and they went to the theater.
One
Friday Night
Peter Fallon received a copy of that letter as an attachment to an e-mail in the third week of September.
He would not have read it, except that it came from Diana Wilmington, an assistant professor at the George Washington University and author of a controversial new book, The Racism and Resolve of Abraham Lincoln. The book had gotten her onto television, radio, magazine covers, and made her one of the most recognizable African American scholars in the country. Peter had also dated her when she was an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts.
“I’ve been thinking of you,” she wrote. “I still read the Boston gossip pages. (How could I not, after the gossip we inspired?) So that bit about you and Evangeline caught my eye. Not getting married but still having a reception…genius.”
Yes, thought Peter. Genius. The hall had been rented and the champagne was cold. It was a great party. As for the decision not to get married…he was not so sure.
He took a sip of wine and kept reading:
“I really liked Evangeline. I thought she was good for you.”
True. Peter couldn’t remember which of them first said, “If it works don’t fix it.” But now, Evangeline was prepping a new project in New York, and Peter was guest-curating a new exhibit in Boston.
“However,” Diana went on, “I’m not writing about your love life. I’d like you to take a look at this attachment.”
Peter clicked to the scanned image of a letter. He glanced first at the header, printed in an Old English typeface: “Executive Mansion.” Beneath it was the word “Washington,” the date April 14, 1865, and to the side, the word “Private” handwritten and circled. Then Peter’s eye dropped to the signature, to the clear and characteristic cursive that was the Holy Grail of autograph collectors everywhere: A. Lincoln.
In an instant, he knew that whatever this was, it was worth seven figures: a Lincoln signature, on a Lincoln letter, written from the Lincoln White House.
Then he looked again at the date and felt a chill: the day Lincoln was shot.
He wiped the sweat from his palms, as if he were touching the original instead of seeing it on a computer screen. He almost went looking for white cotton curatorial gloves.
Could this be Lincoln’s last letter? A last insight into the most analyzed, adulated, biographied, beloved, and, in a few places, detested man in American history? And what did this anonymous lieutenant have that mattered so much at the end of the Civil War? Peter clicked again on the e-mail:
I held this letter in my hands a week ago. A man was offering it for sale to the American Museum of Emancipation. I told him we were a small museum, hoping to consolidate with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture when it opens in 2015, but that I would talk to our board. When I tried to contact him two days ago, he had gone incommunicado. I had been planning to ask you to appraise the letter. Would you be willing to put your skills to finding it, or at least uncovering the story behind it?
Peter lifted the wine bottle. One more tip into the glass would bring him to the bottom of the label. When he drank alone—something he’d been doing more since the wedding that wasn’t—he had a rule: Drink to the bottom of the label and no farther. Stopper the bottle. And every few nights, finish the high-quality dregs. So he poured a bit more, swirled, and sipped.
Then he wrote back:
The last big Lincoln letter to come on the market was his answer to the so-called Little People’s Petition. It went for 3.2m in ’09. That’s where the bidding starts on this, if it’s authentic. So call me. I’m up until midnight.
Then he drank the wine with a little wedge of Époisses: a big cab with a big cheese, an excellent nightcap. And NESN was nightcapping an excellent Red Sox game, which he missed because he had been working on a new exhibit for the Boston Public Library: “A Northern City and the Civil War.”
; It was opening on September 22, the 150th anniversary of the day Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation. The Leventhal Center was providing battle maps. Rare Books was delivering journals and photos from the famed Twentieth Regiment Collection. Peter was contributing a few things from his Antiquaria catalog, including a presentation copy of Walt Whitman’s Memoranda During the War, inscribed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. And an anonymous lender was offering a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation itself.
Peter was doing more than guest curators usually did. He considered it a signal honor from his city, so he wanted to earn it.
And Boston was more than his city. It was his town.
He had his roots in Southie. He’d gone to BC High and Harvard. He ran his business from the third floor of a Newbury Street bowfront that was above an art gallery that was above a restaurant. He had Red Sox season tickets and sat on the boards of two Boston museums. And he could never imagine moving to New York, no matter how much he liked to visit.
Evangeline had decided that she didn’t want to live anywhere but New York, which made marriage a problem and led them to face a hard truth: They both liked their independence, no matter how much they loved each other.
So they’d had a party instead of a wedding and settled for status quo ante. No sharing of utility bills or toothpaste, no extracurricular sharing of themselves, either.
While he waited for Diana Wilmington to call, Peter e-mailed Evangeline:
See you Sunday. We’ll have fun on the battlefields.
Then he poured the rest of the wine.
How did we decide that a little thing like a city would keep us apart?
That was what Evangeline Carrington was thinking as she rode a taxi down the West Side the next morning. But she didn’t think long, because she was catching the 8 a.m. Acela to Washington for her biggest professional adventure yet.
The travel writer was trying television.
She had always written—for satisfaction, for pay, for therapy. She wrote in her attic when she was a girl. She wrote for the Crimson when she went to Harvard. She wrote her way through Columbia School of Journalism after her first breakup with Peter. And after her first marriage fell apart, she wrote about the places she went to escape.
The Lost Constitution Page 61