US Grant Mysteries Boxed Set

by Jeffrey Marks

  "I think I've heard about enough of your accusations for one day. Good evening." The door shook as he closed it behind him. The mirror shivered over the washstand and Grant wondered if the workmanship was able to withstand the vibrations. Not if the glass was like everything else at the hotel. The frame's gilt fluttered to the floor like snowflakes.

  "Julia, I think you need to get a hold of your temper. No reason in setting on people because you're perturbed." Grant turned his head enough to see his wife collapsed on the divan; head tucked in the crook of her arm.

  Loud sniffs emanated from across the room. "I feel like I walked into a bad melodrama. This town has been nothing but trouble. I swear you'd think one person in this village would be grateful to you for saving the Union, but they aren't. Some want life back the way it used to be. Others are trying to figure out how to make a profit with the way things are now. It's disgusting."

  Grant smiled. The nausea subsided and his stomach didn't feel like a ride across the Potomac. "That's the way it always is, dear. People say one thing and expect another. They wanted freed slaves and those same people have no idea of what to do with freedmen. Should they vote — should they own land? What should we call them? This has been brewing in earnest for over forty years and those same people that put the flame to it have no inkling what to do now that the conflict is over."

  "Well, I think it's dreadful. I can't wait to wipe Georgetown's dust from my soles." She lifted the hem of her dress to display a small foot encased in a low-top heel.

  A knock came on the door. "Mind if I quote you on that? Great front page news." Hart stuck his head in the door. From the ashen hue of his cheeks, he'd come from downstairs with the body. His color didn't improve any gazing at the General.

  "I do mind. Very much." Julia went back to packing with a methodical, but swift approach. She didn't let modesty stop her from stuffing pantaloons into a carpetbag.

  "You can't leave without my interview. You promised."

  Grant cleared his throat. The guttural noise made the pounding in his head crescendo into cannon roars. "What are we supposed to tell you? Mrs. Todd's dead and no one knows who killed her."

  Hart pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket. "Well, you can bet I'll solve this mystery. These crimes are my ticket out of this place. A general, murder, death threats, exclusive interviews. This is better than any of those penny thrillers."

  "Well, unfortunately, son, I'm not fit enough to carry out an interview at this point."

  "C'mon, General, you promised." The man's face reminded him of Fred when he hadn't gotten his way in school, petulant and sad.

  "Three things. One I'm guessing that Mrs. Todd was killed with one of my kerchiefs. I thought I recognized the cloth wrapped around her neck. That connects the crime to someone in the hotel or who had contact with me this week."

  Hart nodded. "Verity noticed that too. He's still convinced Mrs. Grant killed her out of spite or jealousy." He leaned against the washstand as he scribbled.

  "Secondly, Adelaide lied about her reasons for being in Georgetown. She told me that her mother was gravely ill, but the doctor told me that Mrs. Duncan is in fine fettle. So that leaves us with why did she come back here?"

  Hart raised an eyebrow. "To possibly re-unite with you? That would substantiate Verity's claims about your wife."

  "Well, Julia wasn't involved in this last piece of information. I saw Mrs. Todd talking to someone at the hotel just before her — passing. I thought it might be Mrs. Massie, but I wasn't sure. It might have been the maid."

  Hart scurried out of the room. "There's one way to solve that. I'll be back."

  Chapter 18

  Mrs. Massie stepped through the sartorial chafe strewn across the threshold. "What do you want now?" Crow’s feet snatched at her eyes while gray tendrils sprung from her hair like cobwebs. Perhaps she had been tamped too tightly like gunpowder and exploded. She'd probably be glad for plain folks for guests after this experience.

  Hart followed the proprietress into the room. He still had a scrap of paper in his hand, covered with scratchings on both sides. Grant wondered if the reporter would be able to decipher the papers enough to write a story. "We were interested in how well you knew Mrs. Todd."

  The cords in her neck tightened until her thin neck resembled a turkey's. "Know that type of woman. I don't have to know Mrs. Todd. Why?"

  Grant stirred, remembering Verity's Indian story. He'd been eyeing Julia, trying to mentally challenging her to stay in line. "What do you mean?"

  The woman crossed her bony arms over her bosom. "I don't usually talk out of turn, but if this will get me done with this — nonsense and back to work, I'll tell you what you want to know. That woman wasn't married to no Mr. Todd."

  Hart scribbled furiously; arching an eyebrow while his fingers flew across the page. He didn’t seem shocked by the news. Julia's mouth dropped. Only for a second. The startled looked transformed into a look of pristine triumph that hadn't even been seen at Appomattox Courthouse. "I knew it."

  Mrs. Massie nodded, loosing more escapees from her bun. "I got me tomcats more married than that woman."

  Grant sputtered. Not because he hadn't heard worse language in an all man's army, but he knew Julia would be repeating that epithet for Mrs. Todd for the next score of years. "How do you know this?"

  "I'm not talking ill of the dead, sir. I'm just telling the truth. More than I should say all at, considering how Mrs. Grant," Mrs. Massie hitched a thumb at Julia, "accused me of trying to kill you with my homecooked stew, especially made for you. My sainted mother gave me that recipe."

  Grant nearly achieved an upright position, trying to assure the woman of his health. He planned to see this matter through to the end. His stomach rumbled and made odd swishing noises. "I'll be fine, thank you. Just tell us what you know."

  Julia managed to force fit her figure between two stacks of clothes on the divan. She nearly trotted to the woman's side, gripping the woman's elbow with both hands. "Mrs. Massie, I meant no harm. I was just a distraught woman worried sick about her husband. Surely you would have behaved similarly for Mr. Massie."

  "Can't rightly know that I would," Mrs. Massie said patting an imaginary girth. "But I can understand."

  "So what did you learn about Mrs. Todd or whatever her name really was?"

  "Well, we don't normally allow ladies to room here without their menfolk. It causes a good hotel to get a nasty reputation, you know? But the Duncan family vouched for Miss Adelaide and we agreed. Nathaniel remembered her as a high-bred young lady."

  Julia leaned forward. Grant couldn't tell if Hart or his wife paid more attention at this point. "Tell us more. Please."

  "I wouldn't have thought much more about the matter except that the mister came back from the local tavern t'other night, mad as a wet cat. Seems he'd heard a couple of Mrs. Todd's kin laughing at her.

  "I'd thought they would have been laughing at her airs and big city ways, but Mr. Massie told me that they mentioned that she'd fooled most of the town, but not her folk. She'd been part of an actor's troop for quite some time. Not exactly a reputable profession and certainly not the type of person I'd want staying in my hotel. I'm a decent lady with standards to uphold."

  Julia stood up and took Mrs. Massie's hand in hers. She patted it with concern. "Indeed you are, but we knew Mrs. Todd had been on the stage. What makes this news so interesting?"

  "Seems that she'd involved herself with an actor in the company. She'd gotten — well, with child and had to leave the theater. She'd gone even too far for the likes of them."

  Julia shot a look to her husband that would have killed lesser men. Grant could have shortened the war six months with that expression. He chose to ignore it. "So what about the actor and the child?"

  Massie shrugged. "My husband didn't hear nothing about them. Her parents put her up in some unwed mothers' home. Would assume she gave the baby up to some good, Christian couple. The actor apparently didn't marry her as she changed h
er name and became Mrs. Todd who traveled alone. The ever-so-respectable married woman."

  Hart scribbled something down and glanced to the proprietress. "Why didn't you ask her to leave?"

  "Why don't you ride out Higginsport Pike and tell me who owns half the land out that way? We told her family she could stay in our establishment and stay she did."

  Grant shifted in his seat, enough to make him wish he hadn't. His stomach conquered his remaining innards. "What about the money?"

  Mrs. Massie looked at him like she was trying to locate an imperfection on the end of her nose. "Money? You mean the bill for her room. After a respectable length of time, we'll ask the family to pay their daughter's debts. They'd be good for it."

  "I'm sure, but I was thinking more about the money you gave Adelaide — Mrs. Todd this morning."

  Her thin figure rose to its full height, bones and hair sticking out every which way. "I most certainly did no such thing."

  "I saw a woman give Mrs. Todd a right smart amount of money this morning." Grant remembered the scene vividly, one of the few events since the onset of his headaches that didn't seem as though they'd happened years ago.

  "You may have seen someone give that — woman money today, but it weren't me."

  Julia made a slight scoffing sound in the background. Her empathy had dried up faster than an August rain. Always there to put her thoughts into an open forum. "Then who might it have been? There aren't that many women around this establishment."

  "Besides Mrs. Todd and your wife, sir, two. Me and Molly Wilkins, the local girl that helps out three days a week." Her voice trailed off on the last words and she appeared to have forgotten her surroundings.

  Without a word, she left the room. Hart scribbled notes on the scrap. The Grants sat in relative silence; Julia continued to push garments into her trunk.

  A bird sang outside the window, an aria to another impending rain. Grant felt the humidity in the air as gusts of wind forced their way into the room. Indian summer would soon be a memory. The momentary respite in the weather did nothing to improve his indigestion or his spirits. Adelaide had been no saint, but still deserved better than lying dead on a plank floor downstairs. He wondered what her life would have been like had she not rejected him all those years ago. Or how his would have been altered? Would he have left home for West Point? No West Point meant no Mexican War, which meant no Civil War, which meant no general status. What he had seen as a step up might have led him down a less visible path. He shot a glance to his wife's pensive features.

  He hoped a covered carriage would be available tomorrow if a rain blew in. Julia would want to look presentable for their arrival in Bethel, his stomping grounds from his summers between West Point. Maybe there he'd be far enough away from the specter of the War or at least those who held him responsible for the carnage of battle.

  Mrs. Massie returned with a cowed Molly. At this range, the girl looked older. Her face showed sunburn and her callused hands had seen years of household work. The cracks and the parched skin announced her station in life.

  "Molly, why don't you tell the Grants what you told me?" Grant almost expected for Mrs. Massie to yank the girl's ear to make her speak.

  "Ma'am, do I gotta?"

  Grant smiled remembering how many times his siblings had asked the same thing of their father in that familiar melodic twang. The maid held some story, which didn't bode well for her position at the National Union.

  "Molly. Now."

  "Well, sir. It's like this. I've been doing Mrs. Todd's room now for a few days since she's been in town. The other day, she caught me — making a thorough cleaning of the room."

  Grant nodded. He'd learned from his Army years that keeping quiet could make you look smarter — like others merely confirmed what you knew.

  "She about gave birth — I mean, she had quite a conniption. Called me a thief and all."

  Julia clucked in the corner. The woman was a symphony of nature sounds this afternoon. "How common of her," she murmured.

  Molly turned to look at her potential ally and grinned with a few missing teeth. "She was at that. Weren't a lady at all. Told me that she would tell on me to Mrs. Massie and have my butt — excuse me ma'am — but that's what she said, thrown out of here."

  Julia nodded. "I'm sure she would have, my child."

  "That's when she told me that if I gave her money, she'd forget the whole ugly episode. Pretend it never happened. Can you believe it? The likes of her wanting money from me?"

  Julia's head moved up and down faster than Fulton's steam engine. "Unfortunately, I can. Mrs. Todd was short of ready change and not too particular on how she remedied that situation."

  "I had to scoot on home and get some money. I only had three dollars to my name, but she took it fast enough."

  Julia made appropriate sympathy sounds and paused for a moment. To others, she might have appeared complacent, but Grant knew that not to be the case. She was plotting which didn't bode well for his head or his stomach.

  Molly snuffled a few times and looked to the women. "May I go now, ma'am?"

  Julia smiled beneficently. "Of course, but I did have one question. When you were cleaning Mrs. Todd's room, did you find anything? She must have been hiding some kind of secret from everyone to be so upset." She used the same tone of voice she would with the heads of state in Washington. Mrs. Johnson wouldn't receive more courtly manners.

  Molly tried not to grin for some reason. "Well, there was a telegram what had been torn up. A few of the shreds were still stuck together when I dumped the trash."

  "Were you able to read any of it or were the pieces too fine? Sometimes when they're stuck together like that, your eye catches a few words."

  Molly's face flushed and she wiped at her forehead with her left sleeve. "Well, ma'am. I could kind of read a few of them."

  "More of Mrs. Todd's shameless doings I'm sure?"

  "I don't think so. Some feller had wrote to tell her all about you and the General coming to Georgetown a few days back."

  Julia's eyes lit up brighter and wider than a harvest moon. "Indeed, well thank you for the assistance in clearing up that incident. The General will talk to Sheriff Verity and see about retrieving your money at an appropriate time. No reason for you to lose out due to that woman's treachery."

  The maid hung her head, looking to the floor for a moment, but probably missing the disarray. "Thank you very much."

  Mrs. Massie and Molly took that as a dismissal. The proprietress gave the maid a look that foretold an impending storm inside the hotel. Grant was glad he didn't have to see that particular scene. He knew it would be as bad as any Cabinet meeting or Council of War. Secrets caused a fuss when they got out.

  Hart looked up from his writings. The corners of his mouth nearly drooped beneath his chin. "Too bad I can't write that story for the News, eh? Another headline to help me out of here."

  Julia's mouth dropped open. "Why ever not? A prominent woman isn't who or what she claims to be. I would expect front page coverage for that."

  Grant laughed. The nausea had begun to subside in the last quarter hour or so. He sat up, propped against the pillows. Whatever had made him vomit had eased his migraine at the same time. Not the way he'd wished to be salved, but it had been an effective cure. "There's nothing you'd like better I'm sure, my dear, than to see Mrs. Todd's name sullied."

  Hart raised an eyebrow. "That may be, but the owners of the paper know who owns the county. They're not anxious to make enemies of the Duncans and their money."

  "Then what about the murders? What makes you think they'll print anything in their precious paper about them?" Julia wanted her rival smeared even beyond victory and death. Good thing she hadn't been at Appomattox. She'd have demanded Lee's trousers and shoes.

  "They'll have to print something. I just hope they allow me write it my way."

  "Indeed, they should. And you'll have that nice interview with the General tonight before we leave. Perhaps you'd lik
e to call back around eight?" Julia's tone dismissed the reporter as well.

  Hart opened the door to leave and nearly collided with Adam Shane.

  "Watch it, runt." Shane took a step into the room and spat into the chamber pot.

  Grant wondered how long the man had been listening at the door. Had he heard the news about Mrs. Todd yet? Many would now think her beneath even the Shanes for her escapades. "What is it, Shane?"

  He carried a handful of papers with him. "Found the problem with the telegraph line this afternoon. Got back and my boy had already taken a bunch of messages. Mostly to you and that Pinkerton man. Thought I'd bring them around."

  Chapter 19

  "Any word from my family? I'm expecting a post from Major Dent." Julia practically stampeded Hart as she made her way to the messages. Major Annoyance was more like it. Grant had little use for newfangled communications or Julia's relations. Too much news, too fast. He'd rather write a letter and bide his time. Julia was fond of neither.

  "No, ma'am. I did get the rest of the message from that Mr. Seward in Washington. Old Useless here sounded right urgent to get it."

  Julia sighed and moped back to the divan. The events of the past few hours had made her oblivious to slights against her husband's name. She’d found her foe dead, been accused of murder, and discovered evidence that blackened Adelaide’s name. Insults were outside her ken now. Shane could have called him ‘private’. She picked up a green brocade dress and coddled it with the others in the trunk.

  Grant approached his former nemesis. The man wouldn't cow to him even with the difference in rank and position. He momentarily wished for that kind of resolute strength within himself, the kind a title and uniform didn't bring.

  "Here you are. The note, or at least the rest of it just says HELP THE PINKERTON FIND THE REBS."

  Grant scoffed. Some assistance the Washington bureaucrats turned out to be, as usual. He hadn't seen two desperate murderers ride into town gunning for him.