by Nan Ryan
Pinkerton didn’t know that the detective who had tracked Suzanna to the cottage had deserted his post while the lovers were ensconced inside. Had the detective remained staked out as he was supposed to, he would have seen Admiral Longley leave, and shortly thereafter, Suzanna trek through the woods to deposit a message under the leaning rock for her courier to collect. Had the detective followed orders issued by Pinkerton, he could have retrieved the missive, captured its author and thwarted the bloody Rapidan River ambush.
But it had been snowing heavily that afternoon and the man was freezing and coming down with a cold. Supposing it made little difference if he left, he had returned to his quarters, never knowing of the missive.
Now, less than thirty-six hours after the deadly ambush, Allan Pinkerton was again questioning the careless detective. And getting nowhere.
“You’re absolutely positive that Miss LeGrande did not make a drop somewhere that afternoon, that she didn’t rendezvous with a courier after leaving Admiral Longley?” Pinkerton plucked his green fedora off his head, slapped it down on his knee and toyed with its decorative red feather while he talked to his agent. “You saw her leave and followed her home?”
“Ah, yes, I…she…they…” The agent swallowed with difficulty. He knew that when Pinkerton took off his fedora and started twisting that red feather he was angry.
“Don’t you lie to me, Detective Brodie!” Pinkerton said, his eyes narrowed.
Sam Brodie knew the jig was up. “I was sick that day, Allan. Really sick. I stayed for more than an hour and…”
“And left before either the admiral or Miss LeGrande did?”
“Yes,” Brodie shamefully admitted.
“I knew it,” said Pinkerton, and slammed his fedora back on his head. “Your one chance to do your job well, make a name for yourself, and you desert your post because of a runny nose.”
“I deserve to be dismissed, sir,” said Brodie, hanging his head.
“You most certainly do, but I’m too shorthanded to let you go.” Pinkerton came to his feet and said, “Despite your bungling, I’ll see to it that Miss LeGrande is locked up by sunset today.”
Brodie looked up. “You will?”
“I will. I’ll finesse the young lady into making a full confession.”
“But how?”
“By making her believe that you actually were doing your job.” Pinkerton stood up then and exhaled loudly. “Better let Lafe Baker in on this. He’ll swear to Stanton he’s responsible for catching her. He’ll grab all the glory.” Pinkerton made a face. “He’ll want to take her in himself. You know what an egotistical ass Baker is.”
* * *
Suzanna had waited. And waited.
Each time she heard horses’ hooves nearing her rented rooms, she tensed, expecting a loud knock on the door.
She hadn’t slept, had hardly eaten. She had walked the floor and intermittently wept, wondering miserably if Mitch was alive or dead. Had he died there on the deck of his vessel? Or was he in a field hospital somewhere in the city, suffering intolerable pain?
Arms crossed over her chest, eyes puffy from crying, Suzanna was pacing restlessly when the drumming of hooves snapped her out of the painful reveries.
This time the horses did not go on past. They stopped. And so did Suzanna’s heart.
A resounding rap on the door set her pulse racing. Suzanna drew a breath and opened the door. She was not surprised to see two Union provost officers standing on the porch. As instructed, neither spoke, just looked at her accusingly, as if they knew of her guilt.
It worked beautifully.
Suzanna didn’t doubt for a minute that the officers knew everything. Mitch had told them. He had turned her in to the authorities for spying.
Since there was no longer any need for pretense, she looked from one to the other and asked anxiously, just as Pinkerton had predicted, “Is he alive? Admiral Longley—did he make it?”
The two officers looked at each other knowingly. Then one spoke. “We know everything you’ve done, Miss LeGrande. You will stand trial for treason, and when convicted, you will be hanged.”
Suzanna accepted the news with little emotion. She had but one question of her captors, which she repeated now. “Did Admiral Longley survive the battle?”
Neither officer replied and Suzanna suspected the worst. She was brokenhearted. Mitch was dead and she was responsible!
“You’re under arrest,” said the taller of the two officers.
“I understand,” she said, “but won’t you tell me if—”
“We’ll do all the questioning, Miss LeGrande,” said the officer. “Now step aside and let us in.”
Suzanna did as she was told. She watched in silence as the pair ransacked her rooms, turning everything upside down in a search for maps and documents. They found nothing. But they were not deterred.
“Get a wrap, Miss LeGrande, it’s time to go.”
* * *
Suzanna looked up in surprise when she saw people gathering on the street, pointing and whispering. A carriage waited at the end of the front walk. As she neared it, a husky man in a finely tailored suit stepped down, took her arm and said to the two officers, “I’ll take over now.” He turned his full attention on Suzanna, and in a voice markedly gruff, introduced himself.
“Miss LeGrande, I’m Lafayette Baker, chief of the Intelligence Service for the United States government.”
Suzanna gave no reply. For months she had been hearing of the infamous Union espionage leader, chief of the War Department detectives. It was said that Captain Lafayette Baker was the personal bullyboy of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. He had shadowed, apprehended, interrogated and imprisoned a multitude of Washingtonians—many on the merest suspicion of disloyalty.
A sadistic, ruthless, cunning man, he seemed to take pleasure in roughly shoving her up into the carriage. And even greater pleasure in saying to the driver, “The Old Capitol.”
Suzanna felt her blood run cold. She had heard so much about that forbidding place, the aging prison that had housed Mrs. Greenhow and countless other Southern agents and sympathizers. She could well imagine what was in store for her.
The ride to the Old Capitol seemed endless. The cold, dreary weather matched Suzanna’s sad mood. The sky was gray, the tree limbs bare. And everywhere, the city was filled with signs of war. Blue-clad soldiers slouched along the streets, rusting supplies sat outside warehouses and the unfinished Capitol dome rose against the pewter sky.
Her heart breaking, Suzanna found it almost impossible to recall the carefree days before the war. It seemed that the terrible conflict had been going on forever, would never end.
Beside her, Lafe Baker was speaking, bragging how he was responsible for exposing her, but Suzanna had no idea what he was saying. She wasn’t listening.
Soon she looked up and saw the Old Capitol at First and A Streets. She’d seen the outside of the prison many times before. But now the tall red building, a series of connected structures rambling in several directions, looked more ominous. Staring at it, Suzanna wondered if she would end her days inside the historic old building that had housed Congress after the British burned Washington.
Suzanna gazed at the once-handsome arched entranceway and at a line of barred windows. She winced at seeing the hands of desperate inmates clenching those bars.
“Shall we, Miss LeGrande?” Lafe Baker asked sarcastically as the carriage rolled to a stop before the prison.
“Why, I’d love to, Captain Baker.” She was equally caustic with her reply.
The captain’s florid face flushed hotly and he said, “You’ll be taken down to size after a few weeks in prison, Miss LeGrande.” He then stepped down and directed her to a flight of stairs.
Inside, a heavyset man met them. “Superintendent Wood,” he said, introducing himself, and Suzanna nodded. He grinned. “Welcome to our humble abode, Miss LeGrande. I trust you’ll be comfortable here.”
Suzanna gave no reply.
Suzanna recoiled at the stench of unwashed flesh. She heard the superintendent say, “It gets a bit fetid in here, I’m afraid. This building was not meant to be a prison, and there have never been so many people packed in at once. But you’ll get used to it.”
The place was gigantic, yet overflowing with prisoners crowded together in the crumbling brick rooms, with their cracked walls and splintered floors. There was squalor everywhere. Piles of filthy clothes and spoiled food lay strewn about. Trash and debris were scattered across the rotting wooden floors. Spiderwebs filled the corners and sagged from the ceilings.
The noise was as bad as the smell. From every direction came shouts, pounding and weeping, and loud raucous laughter from the guards. Following the superintendent, Suzanna walked into a second section of the prison, entering a dark, silent, narrow hallway. Finally he stopped and pointed to the right.
“This is number 4, your luxury accommodations, miss,” he said with a smile. He turned and walked away.
Suzanna drew a ragged breath and stared into the tiny cell, with its one barred window, scarred iron bed and wooden table. An armed sentry motioned her inside. She went in, but whirled around when she heard the door clang shut.
The sentry passed her a sheet of paper through the bars. “Rules and Regulations,” she read. And the first sentence: “No communication whatsoever with other prisoners.” It became clear why there were no cries or shouts or laughter in this wing of the prison.
In deep despair, Suzanna sank down onto the thin mattress, wondering how long she could keep her sanity in the isolation of this dark, dirty cell.
Thirty-Two
News of Suzanna’s arrest spread quickly across the fortified city of Washington. The Union officers with whom she had flirted and danced were outraged. Friends and acquaintances were shocked. None had suspected the lively young beauty of being a traitor.
Dr. Ledet heard about it the day it happened. Shortly after noon he called on a prominent, elderly patient who was under the weather. The eighty-year-old Alfred Thornbury was a man whose loyalties lay firmly with the Union. He supposed his trusted physician’s did as well.
Dr. Ledet had hardly put his black bag down and taken off his heavy greatcoat before Thornbury, lying in his big feather bed, slapped the mattress, laughed heartily and said, “By the saints above us, they caught the snoop responsible for the Rapidan River ambush! Did you hear about it, Doc?”
Dr. Ledet felt as though one of his scalpels had been thrust into his chest. He struggled to keep his tone even when he said, “No. I wasn’t aware that a snoop was responsible for the tragedy.” He turned away, gritted his teeth, reached into his bag and took out his stethoscope.
“Well, of course it was the work of a spy, Doctor.” The old man’s eyes twinkled despite his illness. “You might know, it was a wily woman who did in the commanding officer of that Federal ram. The sneaky Rebs were lying in wait for the poor fellow.”
Dr. Ledet felt faint and overly warm. Still, he displayed no emotion when he said, “A woman? Do they know who?”
“Damn right they know who she is! Suzanna LeGrande is the young lady’s name. One of those haughty Virginia LeGrandes, I presume.” The old man laughed again and confided, “She’s already been arrested and thrown into Old Capitol prison.”
“Have they any proof that this…ah…Miss LeGrande actually is a spy?”
“She confessed, is how I hear it! Admitted to the whole thing.” Warming to his subject, the patient struggled to sit up. “Seems the saucy Southern miss easily seduced Rear Admiral Mitchell Longley. I suppose the besotted officer—who should have known better—shared military secrets with her. The damned fool!”
* * *
Once the physician left his talkative patient, he went directly to Mattie Kirkendal’s mansion. Mattie was smiling warmly when she came downstairs to join him in the drawing room.
“Ah, Doctor, to what do I owe this cold winter afternoon’s unexpected visit?” Her smile immediately slipped when she saw the expression on Ledet’s face. She lifted her voluminous woolen skirts and hurried to him. “Milton, what is it? What has happened?”
“Suzanna. They’ve found her out! She’s been arrested and thrown into prison!”
“Oh, dear Lord,” exclaimed a horrified Mattie. The doctor caught her when she tottered on her feet. He helped her to a sofa, where she dropped down onto the soft cushions. Ledet immediately took a seat beside her. Tears filling her eyes, Mattie sobbed, “It’s all my fault. I should never have allowed her to…”
“My dear, no one could have stopped her. Suzanna is a headstrong young woman and…and…” He stopped speaking, exhaled heavily and admitted, “The blame belongs to me. It was I who sent Suzanna to you when she expressed a desire to aid the Confederacy. I should have known better. I should have foreseen the danger. My God, I should have supposed that something like this was bound to happen.”
Mattie dabbed at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, patted her old friend’s hand and said, “We’re equally responsible, Milton. What’s done is done. Now we must right the wrong we’ve done poor little Suzanna. What can we do to get her out of prison? I’ve money. Perhaps we can bribe a guard to set her free. Once she’s out of jail, we could get her out of the city. Out of the country if necessary.”
Nodding, he said, “As soon as I leave here, I’ll go straight to the Old Capitol and visit her.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, Mattie. That hellhole is no place for a lady.”
Mattie again teared up and said, “Suzanna is a lady and she’s locked up in that hellhole.”
The doctor put a comforting arm around Mattie’s stout shoulders. “We’ll get her out. Somehow. Some way.”
“How do they know she’s a spy?”
“Alf Thornbury, one of my patients with war office connections, swears she confessed.”
Mattie looked her old friend straight in the eye and asked, “What might they do to her, Milton? I mean besides keeping her imprisoned.”
The doctor did not reply, just shook his head sadly.
Mattie understood, and declared, “You must waste no more time. Go to the Old Capitol and help that child. Then come straight back here and report to me.”
* * *
Shortly after four o’clock that same afternoon a distraught Dr. Ledet returned to Mattie Kirkendal’s with more bad news. He had not been allowed to see Suzanna, even when he informed the superintendent that he was a physician whose only interest was in the young lady’s physical condition. No one, he was told, could visit the prisoner. Nor would the superintendent even agree to tell her she’d had a visitor.
“She’ll wonder why we didn’t come to her aid. She’ll believe that we have deserted her,” he worriedly told Mattie as she wrung her hands.
“We’ll write to her, tell her in a letter that I’ll summon my attorney to begin work on her behalf. We’ll let her know that we’re doing everything we can to get her freed.” She hurried toward the inlaid writing desk in the corner.
“No, my dear. It would do no good. I was informed that the prisoner is in isolation and that she is not allowed to speak to anyone, not even the other prisoners. Nor is she allowed to receive mail or messages.”
“But, Milton, we must…”
“Mattie, we must be very careful now. Your name cannot become linked to Suzanna’s or you will become a suspect. And then we can do nothing to help her.”
* * *
“What day is it?”
“Tuesday, Admiral Longley.”
“What month is it?”
The nurse patted Mitch’s thin shoulder through the covering sheet. “It’s early February, sir.” She smiled then and told him, “You have a visitor. Your aunt’s here again.”
Edna Earl Longley hadn’t missed a single day of visiting her badly wounded nephew in the tw
o months that he had been in the hospital. When she learned that Mitch had been wounded in the deadly Rapidan River ambush, Edna had immediately rushed to her nephew’s bedside. The attending physician had gently informed her that Admiral Longley would not recover. His condition was critical, she was told, and death could come at any hour.
But the old woman who loved him like a son scoffed at such dire predictions. She informed the nay-saying physician that her nephew was not going to die for another fifty years! She quickly summoned one of the city’s most respected physicians, Dr. Milton Ledet, and insisted that he examine her nephew.
She grew furious with Ledet when he confirmed what the other physicians had predicted.
“Miss Longley,” Dr. Ledet had said softly, “the poor boy is mortally wounded. We know nothing of the spine, but I’m afraid his injuries are crippling. It will be a miracle if he survives.”
“Get out of this room immediately,” she had angrily ordered. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You shouldn’t be allowed to practice medicine! They ought to take your license away from you, you charlatan.”
Edna Longley staunchly refused to believe her nephew might die. But she grew more and more worried as days and weeks went by and Mitch didn’t rally. He continued to drift in and out of consciousness. His attending physician stated that, unfortunately, the patient did not seem to be fighting for his life.
“In my opinion, the admiral does not care if he lives or dies,” the doctor said.
The statement broke Edna Longley’s heart, but she knew that it was true. And she knew why. It was more than just physical pain and the fact that he was being cashiered out of the navy in shame. She had, in the long hours he lay unconscious, heard him murmur a single name over and over again.
“Suzanna. Suzanna.”
And more than once he had repeated a sentence that had apparently been whispered to him by the red-haired seductress during one of their last trysts. “Kiss me as if this were the last time.”
Edna knew that Mitch was in love with Suzanna LeGrande, the heartless enchantress who had destroyed him. The one and only woman her handsome nephew had ever loved in all of his life was a cunning Southern spy who was responsible for the Rapidan River ambush.