Julia cleared her throat and held out the Bible. “We found this upstairs.”
Jesse Grant looked at her and his mouth dropped open, causing his beard to hit his chest. “We relying on prayer now to find the money?” Grant knew that he’d never talk that way in the company of his wife, who held staunch Methodist beliefs in the Almighty and His ways.
Julia shook her head, and read the passage from the book of St. John as she had done with Grant upstairs. “We found this passage marked in the book. It might be important. It certainly has to do with finding gold.”
Newman nodded. “Well, I found this here key tied to the chandelier in the hallway.” Grant looked down the hall and saw a smaller cut glass chandelier hanging over a distant doorway. He didn’t know if he would have noticed a key in the midst of the sparkling lights above his head. How had Newman managed to see the key when he had to concentrate on getting around? He needed to watch the floor.
The key was a large skeleton key, and looked to be made of gold. It shone in the light and glistened with secrets. Grant took it from Newman’s hand and studied it. He turned the key between his fingers.
The key might look good, but it had little use in a hamlet like this. No one in a small town bothered to lock doors. The type of door that might be locked could be a secret door that hid behind a wall or inside a private house. The only way to find something like that would be going from house to house, and that was not even surefire. If the door were hidden, a cursory search wouldn’t uncover it. With a large stash of gold, Woerner would be ingenious. Money was the mother of many inventions.
“So what now?” Jesse spoke the words that were on the mind of each person in the group. Just like him to do so.
Julia cleared her throat. “I’m still convinced that this passage has something to do with the gold. It’s too coincidental not to be. We need to find some connection to linens or napkins.”
Newman tapped one of his sticks on the floor. “Of course, I should have thought of that before.”
“You know someone with a relationship to napkins?” Julia’s cheeks had flushed slightly. Grant worried that she had contracted the treasure hunt spirit like everyone else in the room. Perhaps it had been best that she hadn’t traveled to California with him, thought he’d been miserably lonely. He’d seen too many folk consumed by gold fever there. He’d found other addictions out West.
“Micah Brown’s woman makes lace. What do you call that?” Newman had beads of perspiration on his forehead out of place on the late September day. Grant wished that level heads would prevail, but the group seemed to be caught up in the hunt.
Julia practically beamed at him, looking full-faced at him and forgetting her lazy eye for a minute. “Tatting. That makes perfect sense.”
This time no one spoke the obvious. Only Brown and Newman were left of the five original conspirators who had found the gold. If the agreement was that the last surviving member got the gold, one of the two of them was a killer. Grant looked at Newman and tried to see his youthful comrade as a murderer, but he couldn’t do it. Still that left Micah Brown who he’d also known. The easy way to find the killer might be to wait for the last man standing. Grant tried to look optimistic that he wouldn’t lose all his boyhood chums to the temptation of easy money, but at this point he wasn’t sure.
Chapter 10
Grant knew that he would never encourage Julia to take up a hobby after his visit to the Browns’ home. Like his compatriots in war, Micah Brown had somehow come up with the funds to build a minor mansion in Bethel, another two-story brick home at the corner of Water and Main Street. The home had high ceilings, with walls of frosted glass. The fireplaces had been crowned with ceramic tiles and mirrors.
The thing that made the home unique though was the amount of lace used in the decorating. Grant had never seen as many doilies on a single sideboard as he did in the Brown home. They owned enough lace to cover the entire town in a lace tent from what he could see. Grant was a plain man, a trait he’d inherited from his mother. Unless a body needed something to set a glass or a vase on, he saw no reason for doilies. Nobody, not even the White House with an ambassadorial reception for the civilized world, could need this number of dainty linens. If the parable were to be taken literally, the Browns’ house would have been the source for the napkin to carry the gold.
Mrs. Brown was a heavyset woman, an imposing figure in a plain black dress. Grant had truly expected a lace collar on the garment, but she had refrained from her handiwork on her own person. Her home had not been so fortunate. Her faded red hair had been pulled up into a knot behind her head, and her face looked as if it had been pulled back along with the hair. Her cheeks were taut, and the corners of her mouth stretched out into a thin grim line. “General, how kind of you to pay a call on us.”
Grant bowed at the waist and tipped his hat to the woman. “I’d be remiss in not seeing my old friends while I was in town. How are you?”
Mrs. Brown nodded to him. “Micah’s in the next room. Let me go get him.” She eyed the group of men who had accompanied him. Newman had decided to listen in, and Jesse would never let a chance for thousands in gold slip through his grasp. The older Grant had carried a spring in his step since hearing about the treasure. He practically lived on Grant’s coattails as if his son would lead him right to the gold.
Mrs. Brown came back into the room, followed by a scarecrow of a man that Grant knew had to be Micah Brown. Had this not been his home, Grant wouldn’t have recognized his one-time summer friend. He was a fraction of his former self. The Micah Brown of his youth had been a hearty boy with a smile and a quick joke. The man who entered the room had a scarecrow’s build, few teeth and less hair. Grant knew that the prison camps had served raw pork and cornhusks for days on end, and that the men had suffered, but he hadn’t seen anyone so gaunt before. The men at Andersonville had been moved from Belle Island. The earlier prison camp near Richmond had lost its rations as Grant’s plan to burn out Virginia’s breadbasket had begun to take hold. Is this what he’d done as a result of his strategy? He had no way to judge the difference a year in Andersonville could make. He felt a gut punch to think of his complicity in the matter.
Brown came forward and shook Grant’s hand in a faint grip. The man felt as if he’d lost the battle with consumption or cholera. Death looked better than Brown. “Sam, it’s been a long time.”
“How you been, Micah?” Grant took a chair that Micah indicated with a crooked finger. For all his wife’s busy work, Micah didn’t look capable of picking up a doily, much less performing the tasks necessary to make one. Grant doubted that this man could have hauled gold from a wagon to a horse, much less the four hundred miles from Georgia.
Micah sat down in degrees like a slow moving crick. He finally rested in the chair and looked across the room. Grant had a sudden attack of conscious. How could he ask this man to give up the money that shelter him from the world now? Hadn’t he suffered enough without being forced to make his way after his strength was gone? Wasn’t he entitled to something?
Grant was lost in his thoughts and looked up to realize that Micah was deep into some story from the past. Jesse threw in a word now and then, a reminder to the man about what had happened. The main point of the story seemed to be Grant had tamed some horse after the creature had been called unbreakable. His ability to communicate on some level with the creatures intrigued people who only saw them as means to plow a field or to get from here to there.
Grant looked around, but Mrs. Brown had disappeared. Probably to tat a saddle for the 4th Ohio Cavalry. With her gone, Grant felt it easier to be forthright about the reasons for their visit. “Micah, you know that Woerner is dead. We’re trying to find what he did with the gold.”
Micah didn’t speak. He sat ramrod stiff in the seat and swiveled his head to look at Grant and then Newman.
“Do you know what he did with it?” Jesse wasn’t content to be a spectator in any situation. The man forced himself onto the po
dium at rallies for his son and gave speeches hours longer than the guest of honor. Why would Grant expect him to be any less intrusive in his queries?
Micah shook his head. “I wasn’t in much shape to carry gold. That is one heavy metal. Adam used to bring it to my house.”
Grant cleared his throat and shot a look at his father. “Well, we have reason to think that your wife might know about the gold.”
Micah coughed a racking croup that shook his entire body. The group waited for him to finish. “Nonsense. I’d know.”
Grant looked his friend in the eyes. “We’re not saying she had something to do with the murders. We just found a clue that might suggest she knows where the gold is.”
Micah unwound his stiff body enough to lean back in the chair. It pained Grant to see his friend move with such deliberate actions. “Go ahead and ask.”
She re-entered the room without a summons from the group. Grant wondered where she had been that permitted her to hear the conversation so clearly. She stood next to her husband and draped a protective arm around his shoulder. How much of the family work had she inherited since his return? Or while he was gone for that matter? Grant was sure that the gold had made their lives easier. Money insulated you from the real world and the problems carried with the rough edges of everyday life.
“Ask me what?” Mrs. Brown’s mouth didn’t move as she spoke, making Grant wonder if indeed her hair was pulled too tight.
“Adam Woerner left a suggestion in his house that might have a connection to you. Do you know anything about where he might have hidden the gold they found in Georgia?” Grant was almost embarrassed at the tenuous thread that connected the gold to Mrs. Brown. He would hate to explain the spider web of implications, broken with the slightest of breezes. He wished Julia were here to deal with this woman. He trusted his wife to handle with the fairer sex in almost all cases. Except for Mary Lincoln, Julia could handle most women with grace and aplomb. Certainly with more ease than he could.
Mrs. Brown held a hand to her bosom. “Me? Since when would Adam Woerner tell me about the gold? Why don’t you ask Mrs. Halley? I’m sure he was much more likely to tell her about secret hiding places.” She managed a little snort that reminded Grant that the Browns had once been pig farmers.
Newman sputtered and tried to intervene, but Jesse held him back. “Are you saying that Mrs. Halley and Adam Woerner were – involved?” Grant knew what was underlying the words. If Halley’s wife and Woerner were having relations, the motive for the crimes could be different. They’d all assumed that money bound the men, but illicit relationships would add too many permutations to contemplate.
Mrs. Brown merely sniffed at the question. She looked to Micah who didn’t utter a sound. From his furrowed brow and deep frown lines, he was obviously displeased that she had told tales out of school. Yet, he didn’t speak against his wife. From the sheer quantity of the lace, Grant was fairly certain he knew who ran the house. He could be no surer if Mrs. Brown had swaddled her husband in the material.
“Now, Rose, Adam Woerner was over here a couple of months ago.” Micah had turned to look at his wife and rested a hand on her arm.
“Not to talk about gold, he wasn’t. He wanted me to show him how to make a lace pretty for his house.” Her face lit up at the thought of tatting, and she started a long narrative of how she gotten involved in the art. Grant let her natter on for several minutes while the other men in the room looked as if a doctor had remove a lung without laudanum. Grant tried to think about other matters, but a few facts seeped in. She’d started tatting to while away the uncertain hours not knowing where Micah was after the battle of Gettysburg. The tatting kept her company through the long years of his captivity, and finally she had started making some money at it in town to help support herself. Now she didn’t need the money, but the hobby had become integral to her life. Their money had bought her some new equipment and the house had a room devoted to lace and tatting now.
Grant demurred for the third time of seeing the room when he decided to bring the conversation back to the topic at hand. Hopefully, by allowing the woman to talk about something she enjoyed that she would be more cooperative in helping them find the gold. “You mentioned that Woerner had come over to look at your lace. Was he interested in something particular?” Grant wondered if the man had a choice in listening to her talk about lace, or if he’d had an interest in something that might be related to the hiding place.
“Well, yes, he was. He had a particular pattern he wanted made for the top of his china hutch. It was a bit challenging, but he said I did it just fine.” She beamed at the thought of a compliment on her work.
“When was this?” Grant took control of the conversation. He wasn’t sure if the men had deferred to his questions or if they had no idea where he was taking the conversation.
“Well, it was just after the Fourth of July. He’d just had a party at his new home, and I remember that because I knew the china hutch he was talking about. And I had to agree that a nice piece of lace would look lovely on it.”
Grant decided that she would think that a coat rack would look good with a doily on it. Even so, Grant thought the timing was about right, though he doubted that Woerner truly gave a rat’s petute about doilies. Woerner could have made the lace as a clue to the hiding place of the gold, but Grant had no idea what the piece of lace could mean. What was a man supposed to think about a doily? He obviously wanted it to mean something since he had marked that passage in the Bible, but who knew how that man’s mind worked? Why couldn’t they have given responsibility to someone who would write down the instructions on a piece of paper like a plain man would? Grant cursed Woerner and his fancy thinking ways.
Jesse stood up and coughed. Apparently, he’d tolerated enough of the gentle arts for one morning.
Grant followed suit, and Micah led them to the door. He gave Grant an enthusiastic, but limp handshake. “Curtis tried to escape and Collins wouldn’t die, you know? That rope snapped and he fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.”
Newman looked at Grant and Jesse. “He’s talking about the Raiders. They were hung for their crimes against the other prisoners.”
“You know they weren’t buried with the rest of them. That Wirz made them rot for eternity by themselves.” Micah’s eyes had grown into the size of the double eagles, and he gripped Grant’s hand in both of his.
Grant furrowed his brow. He’d heard stories of men coming back from the war, not right in the head, but he’d not seen many of them. “So I heard, Micah. So I heard.”
Micah’s face relaxed into an easy smile. “Good to see you, Sam. Sorry about Rose. She can prattle on for a time when you get her started.”
Grant smiled on him. It was easy to be beneficent when he was leaving. “No problem. Julia can do the same at times.”
Jesse made a face at his son as they left. He was not the type for social niceties when they weren’t required by social status. “Where to now?”
Grant pointed back to the Woerner home. “Back to where we started today.”
Chapter 11
Julia held up the piece of linen and tried to decide which way was up. The tatted lace doily was square with a few random holes in it. “Ulys, what exactly is this pattern supposed to be? I’ve never seen a doily like this. They’re supposed to be flowers or snowflakes. This looks more like a hogweed.”
Grant shrugged and spread the map out on the cornhusk mattress. “I have no idea. It must mean something though. Woerner specifically asked Mrs. Brown to make for him.”
“Maybe he was just humoring a silly lady.” Julia threw the napkin on the washstand and approached her husband. She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned over to view the map. “And where did you find all this at? What makes you think this is important?”
Grant looked up at her and smiled. “For starters, this was your idea. We followed the Bible story with the napkin to Mrs. Brown who told us about the lace doily she made for Woerner. When we
went back to Woerner’s house, we found it right where Mrs. Brown said it was. This map was underneath.”
Julia looked at the square grid of Bethel again. “So this is what a treasure map looks like? I was expecting something more – thrilling.” Grant had to agree. He’d seen any number of maps like this during the war. The piece of paper held a surveyor’s map of Bethel, complete with Platte numbers and markings.
Little Jess bounded into the room. “Mr. Newman told me about the map.” He lunged on to the bed and nearly crumpled the paper. “Can I see? Where’s the X?”
Grant smoothed out the page again and pointed to the center of the map. “That’s just the thing. I’ve found four marks on the page. It could be any of those places. I can’t believe that Woerner went all over town to bury the stupid treasure, and then dug it all up on a monthly basis. It’s not reasonable.”
“Papa, where are they?” Little Jess could barely keep his skin on. The boy perched on the edge of the bed and swung his legs wildly. “When we going to go dig them up? I just know we’re gonna find it.”
“We can’t just go digging up Bethel, Jess. People will talk and wonder what is going on. A certain amount of discretion is needed over a campaign like this. The whole town can’t see us look for gold. Before you know it, everyone and their grandmother will be digging up the street corner with a spade.” Grant began to fold the map back up.
For all his work with maps and cartography during the war, he couldn’t divine much from this particular specimen. The map was definitely Bethel. That much was easy to see. Otherwise, it looked like an ordinary surveyor’s map. A few places on the map had been marked with a pen, but Grant had expected a more dramatic signpost to a fortune in coins. Instead, four small X’s had been marked on the page, and Grant couldn’t see that any one of them look more promising than the others. He recollected the time that Woerner had hid a frog in his sister’s bathwater. He was like that. He’d have a good chuckle, wherever he was, watching these simple folk try to cipher out what he’d left for them.
US Grant Mysteries Boxed Set Page 25